Chairman of Sinclair Broadcasting completely distrusts print media which he believes "serves no real purpose."

David Smith, killing journalism one bullshit propaganda piece at a time.

Courtesy of New York Magazine: 

David Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, said he dislikes and fundamentally distrusts the print media, which he believes “serves no real purpose.” In emails to New York, Smith said that print — as in newspapers and magazines — is a reality-distorting tool of leftists. Print media, he said, has “no credibility” and no relevance. 

“I must tell that in all the 45 plus years I have been in the media business I have never seen a single article about us that is reflective of reality especially in today’s world with the shameful political environment and generally complete lack of integrity. Facts and truth have been lost for a long time and likely to never return,” Smith said. 

“The print media is so left wing as to be meaningless dribble which accounts for why the industry is and will fade away. Just no credibility.”

Yeah how can anybody trust the New York Times and the Washington Post with all their left leaning facts?

This statement is not one that a real newsman would ever make.

You might disagree with a story or two, but to discount ALL of print media as biased against your view of reality, really says more about your view of reality than on their reporting.

Keep in mind that Fox News was created by Roger Ailes as an alternative to the real journalism which he blamed for destroying the career of his former boss and hero Richard Nixon.

Right Wing new outlets are not about informing the public, they are about building mistrust for the media and pushing a conservative agenda that they realize is vulnerable to fact checking.

Here, let John Oliver explain it better than I can.

Oliver, as you might remember, was one of the very first to reveal to us just what Sinclair was up to way back in the summer of last year.

If this does not terrify you, well then you have lost the ability to be terrified.

Probably due to Right Wing brainwashing.

At least one political candidate is taking a stand against this obvious propaganda.

Courtesy of TPM:  

A Kentucky Democratic congressional candidate has pulled all of her campaign advertisements from her local, Sinclair Broadcasting-owned news channel after the controversy that exploded when anchors all over the country echoed the same script warning of fake news and biased reporting. 

Amy McGrath is challenging incumbent Republican Andy Barr in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District. “Today, I have instructed my campaign team to cease and pull all campaign advertising on WDKY-TV (Channel 56), the Sinclair-owned television station in our congressional district, as soon as possible,” she wrote in a Facebook post on Monday. “Sinclair’s corporate-mandated ‘must-read’ right-wing script on its nearly 200 television stations about ‘fake news’ is itself an extreme danger to our Democracy and eerily mimics the propaganda efforts that authoritarian regimes often use to control the media in their own country.”

Admirable. But let's face it she is a Democrat, so Sinclair Broadcasting would not even tap their brakes if they saw her laying unconscious in the middle of the street.

However if others join Amy McGrath, and not just politicians but businesses as well, that might be enough to force at least the semblance of fair and balanced reporting from this conservative propaganda machine.

Hey, maybe somebody can convince the Parkland students to tweet about them, that seems to work pretty good.

EPA chief comforts fossil fuel companies by assuring him that new report which specifically blames climate change on humans will not impact his policy decisions.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said a newly released government report that lays most of the blame for the rise of global temperatures to human activity won't deter him from continuing to roll back the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, a major rule aimed at combating climate change. 

"We’re taking the very necessary step to evaluate our authority under the Clean Air Act and we’ll take steps that are required to issue a subsequent rule. That’s our focus," Pruitt said in an interview with USA TODAY Tuesday. "Does this report have any bearing on that? No it doesn’t. It doesn’t impact the withdrawal and it doesn’t impact the replacement."

You might be asking yourself why a scientific report would have zero impact on EPA policies, considering the job they are supposed to perform, and the answer to that is because it's only some report done by scientists.

Courtesy of the LA Times:  

Rigorous, independent research and analysis should undergird everything the government does. Nowhere is that more true than at the Environmental Protection Agency, which crafts and enforces a wide range of regulations aimed at limiting damage to the environment — and to people — from pollutants. Democratic administrations tend to use data to justify more aggressive regulation, while Republican administrations tend to prefer a lighter touch. But the current administration is following a third path, seemingly bent on converting the EPA into a science-be-damned rubber stamp for industry. And if director Scott Pruitt is successful, we will be living in a much more dangerous environment.

So no, a report from a bunch of scientists will NOT have an impact on the polices of the EPA, because the head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, simply does not believe in all that science mumbo jumbo.

Nearly half of those surveyed think that the media fabricates negative stories about Donald Trump.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Nearly half of voters surveyed in a new poll think the media make up stories about President Trump and his administration. 

A Politico/Morning Consult poll finds 46 percent of voters think the media fabricate reports about Trump and his administration. 

Only 37 percent of voters disagree and another 17 percent are undecided, according to the poll. 

The percentage of Republican voters who think the media make up stories about Trump is even higher. 

Seventy-six percent of Republicans think the media fabricate stories about Trump and his administration. About 20 percent of Democrats think the media make up stories, but 65 percent of Democrats disagree.

And there lies the problem.

What good is a free and open media if people have been conditioned to believe they are posting fake news stories designed to hurt their leader?

I used to really think that more access to more media outlets would only better reveal the truth.

Boy was I naive.

Lacking confidence in the intelligence agencies, Donald Trump demands to see "raw data" himself. Oh I have a bad feeling.

"I'm like very smart."

Courtesy of The Hill:

Officials have urged the intelligence community to supply President Trump with fewer analysis reports compiled by experts and more raw intelligence, the Associated Press reported Saturday. 

Raw intelligence was a larger priority under the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the report said. He was ousted last month for misleading White House officials about the contents of his discussion with Russia's U.S. ambassador. 

Many intelligence experts in the past have raised concerns about the possibility that Trump would want to sidestep data analysts during his presidency. 

“The risk is that you request raw data to support a conclusion and you avoid seeing anything that contradicts it,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Hill in January. 

“We can already see we have a president-elect who has difficulty with facts that are at odds with the narrative that he wants to tell or diminish his achievements.”

Do you know that feeling you get when the music gets louder in the horror movie right before somebody gets axed in the face?

Yeah well I have that feeling right now. 

Donald Trump knows NOTHING about intelligence gathering and he would not be able to make heads or tails out of it.

So who is he going to call in to help to understand what he is looking at?

I can tell you right now that the guy whose hand would go up the fastest to volunteer for that job would be Stephen Bannon.

You know, the conspiracy theorist who used to head Breitbart news and once thought that Sarah Palin was destined for the White House.

Yep, here comes the axe to the face.

Outgoing CIA Director blasts Donald Trump for blaming intelligence agencies for "pee-gate" and accusing them of being Nazis.

.@FoxNews "Outgoing CIA Chief, John Brennan, blasts Pres-Elect Trump on Russia threat. Does not fully understand." Oh really, couldn't do...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2017

much worse - just look at Syria (red line), Crimea, Ukraine and the build-up of Russian nukes. Not good! Was this the leaker of Fake News?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 16, 2017

Those tweets went out on Sunday night.

On Monday CIA Director John Brennan was interviewed by the Washington Post:

“Was I a leaker of this? No,” Mr. Brennan said Monday in an interview at CIA headquarters, days before he ends a career that has spanned more than three decades and that took him from entry-level recruit to head of the nation’s most storied spy service. 

“First of all, this is not intelligence community information,” Mr. Brennan said. He noted that the dossier had been circulating “many months” and that he first heard about it from inquiring reporters last fall. To date, he hasn’t read the document and gave it no particular credence, he said. 

“I would have no interest in trying to give that dossier any additional airtime,” Mr. Brennan said. 

Later in the interview Brennan added this:

“I think it’s the right and indeed the responsibility of the president of the United States to challenge the conclusions of the intelligence community,” Mr. Brennan said. “We don’t expect our information and our assessments to be swallowed whole. 

“It’s when there are allegations made about leaking or about dishonesty or a lack of integrity, that’s where I think the line is crossed,” he continued, taking particular umbrage at Mr. Trump’s comments last week that leaking intelligence on political figures was something that Nazi Germany “would have done and did do.” 

“Tell the families of those 117 CIA officers who are forever memorialized on our wall of honor that their loved ones who gave their lives were akin to Nazis,” Mr. Brennan said. “Tell the CIA officers who are serving in harm’s way right now and their families who are worried about them that they are akin to Nazi Germany. I found that to be very repugnant, and I will forever stand up for the integrity and patriotism of my officers who have done much over the years to sacrifice for their fellow citizens.” 
 
That last bit was in response to this tweet from Trump:

Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

Never, and I mean NEVER, has an incoming president been at war with his own intelligence community.

It does not only threaten to leave Trump dangerously ill informed but it also has the potential of putting Americans at risk in this country.

The intelligence agencies are who we rely on to identify and locate potential terrorists.

What happens when the President, or his staff, refuse to read or understand the information they are being given?

Oh wait, we know what happens.

Congratulations Trump voters, you have now put the entire country at risk due to your ignorance.

Atheists are still the most disliked group in America. So we have that going for us.

Courtesy of World Religion News:

Ten years ago University of Minnesota sociologists conducted research showing that, among a long list of racial and religious minority groups, atheists were the most disliked group of people in the United States. Last month they followed up with new research that shows that Americans still have negative opinions of atheists and the non-religious–and now they have a good theory about why that is. 

Survey data collected in 2014 shows that, compared to data collected in 2003, Americans have sharpened their negative views of atheists, despite an increase in people identifying as non-religious and an increase in public discussion of non-belief. 

The findings of this most recent survey support the argument that atheists are persistent cultural outsiders in the United States because they are perceived to have rejected cultural values and practices understood as essential to private morality, civic virtue, and national identity. Moreover, any refusal to embrace a religious identity of any type is troubling for a large portion of Americans. 

Well I would argue that the second and fourth contention are pure bullshit, however depending on your definitions the first and third may not necessarily be incorrect.

Yeah if you are an Evangelical, I really DON'T share your vision of American society.

And if by "elite" you mean a critical thinker who is not easily duped by superstitious nonsense, and believes they are intellectually superior to those who are, then yes guilty as charged.

I guess the same probably holds true concerning "perceived to have rejected cultural values and practices understood as essential to private morality," if by that they mean Judeo Christian values, as well as rejecting a "national identity" if that national identity means describing oneself as a Christian.

So great it appears that I have confirmed all of the reasons that certain religious groups may distrust and even fear those of us who identify as "Atheists."

However I would argue that some of those reasons are also WHY some of us defiantly argue for the integrity of the title Atheist.

I cannot speak for the entire group as we are wildly eclectic, but for myself I have eschewed the safety of the less threatening label "Agnostic" because for one it does not adequately describe my point of view, and two I do not believe it right to judge people solely on their beliefs, or lack thereof.

If you want to dislike me, dislike me because I am an arrogant asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. THAT is a legitimate reason to dislike me.

However if you dislike, or distrust, me based on the fact that I do not attend your church, or worship your god, then I reject the legitimacy of your feelings.

For they are not based on anything to do with who I am, but only based on the misconception of the label with which I identify.

A misconception by the way which is changing ever so slightly every day, until at some point the labels will mean nothing, and all that will remain is the content of our character.

As it should be.

Bristol Palin's new message on Instagram is......interesting.

Source

Not sure exactly who this directed at, or really what it means exactly.

As far as I can tell lately the person who has wronged Bristol the most is her own mother by having crazy and ignorant things written on blog under her name.

Who does she tell about what her mother did to her? Todd?

P.S. While we are on the subject this is an old picture of Bristol, not a current one. 

Fox News all in a tizzy over unauthorized book on Roger Ailes.

Courtesy of Media Matters:  

Random House has begun rolling out New York reporter Gabriel Sherman's unauthorized biography of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes for its January 21 release. For more than a year, Fox News has attempted to discredit the book by attacking Sherman with vitriolic online attacks ("stalker," "embarrassment," "PHONEY JOURNALIST") and by reportedly helping with a counter-biography and firing a top Fox executive. 

Sherman's The Loudest Voice in the Room states it draws on "more than 600 interviews with people who've known Ailes over his remarkable five-decade career as well as a rich variety of other sources" and "documents Ailes's tactical acuity as he battles with the press, business rivals, and countless real and perceived enemies inside and outside Fox." 

Fox News reportedly attempted to counterbalance Sherman's book by working with Zev Chafets on an Ailes-friendly biography. Politico reported that Ailes agreed to cooperate with Chafets' biography "because he was eager to preempt Sherman's version with a more favorable and hopefully sympathetic account of his legacy." Fox News was clearly happy with Chafets' final work, as numerous Fox News personalities praised the book, and Chafets was afforded ample airtime on Fox properties. 

Fear over Sherman's book was also reportedly a factor in Ailes' firing of Fox News vice president Brian Lewis. Gawker reported that "Lewis was paid approximately $8 million in hush money" and quoted an unnamed Fox News executive stating of the separation: "Everything was about Gabe Sherman." The source "further explained that, up until the day of Lewis's dismissal, the channel's public relations division, which Lewis oversaw, had suffered from heated internal disagreements about how to properly handle Sherman's book." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "rumors have swirled that Lewis also was suspected of helping Gabe Sherman." Fox News personalities have regularly attacked Sherman and his work for more than a year.

Oh yeah, Fox News is all about making up stuff about other people,  but have somebody threaten to tell the truth about one of them, and they lose their shit.

Well guess what just moved to the top of my reading list.