TABLOID ny post

this is also generic tabloid page (oopssee sep NY post)

SEE HYPE FEAR

escalator vulnerable entry point?

NY post owned by Murdoch

part of RW conserv media?

---

MMA June 19, 2025, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House

ALICIA MENENDEZ (ANCHOR): As Donald Trump flirts with the greater American involvement in the conflict, it's caused deep division in the MAGA movement, upsetting some of his most influential America first figures, the likes of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, who was spotted today outside the White House. Bannon has warned against any American involvement in the conflict. Joining the conversation, president of Media Matters for America, Angelo Carusone, Claire McCaskill, is still with us. Angelo, describe this division between the two factions of MAGA here.

ANGELO CARUSONE (PRESIDENT, MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA): Yeah, I think it's so big that it then — it even expands out to the larger sort of right wing media echo chamber because, as you noted, Fox is pretty heavily in the, you go to war with Iran camp. They've been pushing this for a very long time. This they see as an opportunity, and they know know that they have Trump's ear. I mean, even though the last election, there's much to be made about the podcast and the inner, you know, these online shows that Trump deployed and used, that's not his go-to day to day. The lens through which he sees the world, even still as president, is cable news, and Fox News is the main vehicle for that. That's why when he was criticizing Carlson, he said, look, tell him to get a TV network, and then maybe people will listen to what he has to say because that's still the mindset. And so Fox is all in on this, and they are reflective of a part of the MAGA base.

MENENDEZ: But why? Why, Angelo? Why are they all in on this?

CARUSONE: I mean, look. Part of it is straight bigotry. I mean, they really — they have really spun this narrative, we shouldn't forget about that, that Islam is a fundamental problem, that we are in a battle for good and evil. And even though has been a little bit sidelined in terms of his day-to-day involvement in this particular decision, let's not forget that Pete Hegseth, who is very reflective of the Fox News worldview, was somebody that described the great conflict, not as one between the United States and China or other great powers, but as between Christianity and Islam, and that we had to go out there and do everything we can, including using our military, to put that back in check.

So they see this larger geopolitical world through that framework, and that is something that they've been pushing for a very long time aside from just having — that is also part of their their foreign policy. They don't believe that you should democratize other countries. They're just — they're warmongers.

They believe in might makes right. And even though they are repeating Trump's line of peace through strength, they actually don't mean peace through strength. They mean, strength first and then, you know, have peace because you have nothing left after that. I mean, that's honestly what they're actually saying, and it's core to the Fox News base. It also plays really well on TV. Like, we shouldn't lose the sight of that.

Rupert Murdoch cut his teeth in the tabloids, and one of the big things that he always did was find the most horrible, horrific things that he could tell stories about crimes, violent things, and exaggerate them, but also lay them into a demographic fight. That's part of how he came to be. He sees news through that storytelling perspective. And then you have people like Carlson and Bannon who have their own world view, and a lot of it is hyper nationalist, and we shouldn't be celebrating that in that even though they are taking a position here that seems more reasonable, it's coming from a really scary place. It is coming from either straight up bigotry, you know, antisemitism, or a real deep intense nationalism, that is — even if they get to a destination there that seems peaceful, it's because they want to turn their energy internally on what they see as domestic enemy.

That's the part that doesn't get sort of carried through here is that they see the real threat not as foreign entities, not as these foreign entanglements, but as you and me, as members of the media and as advocates and people that are participating in civic spaces. That's who they see as the real target right now as enemy number one. So we shouldn't lose sight of why they're advocating for peace, but the net effect of all of this, though, and this I think Claire McCaskill really illustrated this well in the first segment is that this is the confusion. This is why Trump is on the sidelines.

If Bannon and Tucker were either quiet or were in uniform with this idea that he should be bombing Iran, it would have happened already. And because part of how he sees the world is through these stories, he's trying to see how this particular chronicle plays out a little bit. You know, who wins in this narrative for hearts and minds for audience share. And that's a big part of this, is seeing how the story plays out, because he honestly isn't sure there's something grounding him. And now it's just what's going to end up capturing the imagination of his base, of his audience, and where is he going to get the best ratings for himself.

---

[[ 8 22 update BTW in last month 2 sci artls prove that it was wet mkt?

a case study in RW bad faith? jrnl fail

aha hmmn 8 22 connect to target fauci // bogeyman conspir req single cause/bad guy a la soros

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/how-right-turned-dr-fauci

matt g

no lnx many vid]

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease official and a public health adviser to seven presidents, announced on Monday that he plans to retire in December after more than 50 years of public service. President Joe Biden toasted Fauci as “a steady hand with wisdom and insight honed over decades” and praised his “unparalleled spirit, energy, and scientific integrity,” while top scientists touted his record of “sav[ing] countless lives.”

While Fauci once earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-President George W. Bush, his impending retirement was not greeted with plaudits from the right. On Fox News that night, Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue described him as “a dangerous fraud, a man who has done things that in most countries, at most times in history, would be understood perfectly clearly to be very serious crimes.” The New York Post headlined its editorial the next day “Good riddance to dangerous Dr. Fauci,” while The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board concluded that “his legacy will be that millions of Americans will never trust government health experts in the same way again.”

Fauci, like everyone else involved in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 1 million Americans, does not have a perfect record. But he spent his career trying to remain impartial, avoid partisanship, and offer the best advice he could, and for decades, he was respected on both sides of the political aisle. That reputation ultimately could not survive the relentless propaganda of the right-wing press, which needed a coronavirus scapegoat and found one in the octogenarian scientist.

Right-wing propagandists began turning Fauci into their latest hate object in March 2020.At the time, states had imposed stay-at-home orders and other social distancing measures that were recommended by the Trump administration to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Fox and other pro-Trump outlets consistently downplayed the threat posed by the virus and promoted a minimalistic response that dismissed such efforts in favor of snake oil miracle cures.

Trump’s media supporters could not or would not try to directly challenge the president, and settled instead on targeting Fauci, who was a face of the administration’s response. He initially drew their ire as a critic of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, the malaria drugs thatFox hostsand then the president had recommended as a coronavirus treatment (numerous studies have found the drugs ineffective) and as part of the supposed “ruling class” that could weather a long-term economic shutdown.

At the time, even right-wing pugilists likeFox’s Tucker Carlson were still pulling their punches. “Imagine another year of this,” he said on his April 3, 2020, show. “That would be national suicide, and yet, that is what Anthony Fauci is suggesting, at least.” But Carlson went on to acknowledge that Fauci wasn’t trying to “hurt America,” saying that he “seems like a very decent man” who was simply misguided.

That gentility would not last. The pro-Trump media — and Carlson in particular — became increasingly unhinged and vituperative toward Fauci as the pandemic wore on. Ultimately, the right-wing attacks on Fauci had dramatic impacts for the country.

By mid-May of 2020, Fox’s prime-time stars had decided that the crisis was over. When Fauci said in congressional testimony that it was not, and that the virus was likely to recur in the fall and winter, they began pushing for Trump to fire him.On programs that the Fox-obsessed president watched religiously, they portrayed Fauci as power-mad and using his influence to “favor what the Democrats want.” Those attacks continued over the following weeks and months.

In July, Trump began publicly echoing the right-wing media’s concerns about Fauci. The following month, the president appointed Scott Atlas, a radiologist and right-wing think tanker who caught his attention through frequent Fox appearances, to the White House coronavirus task force.

Atlas effectively displaced Fauci as Trump’s top coronavirus adviser, and used that position to promote a “herd immunity” strategy for coping with the virus. His actions ultimately helped bring about the very wave of hospitalizations and deaths Fauci had earned the opprobrium of the right for warning about months earlier.

But the right’s attacks on Fauci continued over the months and years to come.

Carlson was the scientist’s most implacable media foe. He described Fauci as an “elderly power-drunk epidemiologist”; “capricious and transparently political”; a “hypocritical buffoon”; an “oily politician on an ego trip”; and an “even shorter version of Benito Mussolini.” He denounced the scientist’s recommendations as “authoritarian,” falsely claimed that Fauci “helped to create” the coronavirus, and called for him to “never work in public policy again.”

Other right-wing pundits demonized Fauci as “one of the great criminals of our civilization” and a member of the “medical deep state” who was “on a jihad” against Trump and behaves “more like a monarch.” They called for an investigation into his purported crimes and fantasized about him being put in “leg irons” or even beheaded. They even accused him — falsely — of killing puppies, with one describing him as “the dog-murdering and orphan-killing doctor, Anthony Benito Fauci.”

Fox’s attacks on Fauci have become so habitual that they often seemed to serve as background noise on the right-wing channel. But at times, the network’s talking heads have issued comments so abhorrent that they trigger widespread public outrage and even a response from the network brass. Fox sidelined Lara Logan, a host on the network’s streaming service, after she compared Fauci to the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele during a November 2021 appearance.The following month, the network publicly defended host Jesse Watters after he drew controversy for exhorting an audience of young right-wing activists to “ambush” Fauci with a rhetorical “deadly” “kill shot.”

Amid the flurry of often violent public criticism, Fauci divulged that he regularly received threats. Earlier this month, a man was sentenced to more than three years in prison for sending Fauci emails with comments like “You and your entire family will be dragged into the street, beaten to death, and set on fire.”

Fauci’s retirement announcement has opened a debate about who might succeed him. But senior members of the U.S. medical establishment are warning that the right’s attacks on Fauci may limit the pool of applicants willing to try to fill his shoes.

“What keeps the former surgeon general [Jerome Adams] up at night is his fear that talented candidates won’t want these jobs after what Fauci and other public health officials have faced over the last few years,” Politico reported on Monday. “Fauci has received death threats, and his daughters have been harassed — and Adams worries that this vitriol is a big part of why Fauci is stepping down.”

When the next pandemic hits, the U.S. response might thus be hobbled, thanks to the right-wing media’s impulse to destroy a vital public servant for political gain.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-promise-harass-anthony-fauci-retirement-if-republicans-win-back-control

no lnx vid

Right-wing media promise to harass Anthony Fauci in retirement if Republicans win back control of Congress

Fauci’s retirement announcement was met with a new flurry of vitriol from right-wing media

WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD, BUSHRA SULTANA & SHELBY JAMERSON

PUBLISHED 08/24/22

When presidential medical adviser Anthony Fauci announced his plans to retire in December after five decades of public service, right-wing media personalities predictably attacked him, calling him a “sociopathic liar and political hack” who “needs to be held accountable for all of the lies and misdirections.”

On Monday, Fauci announced he intends to step down as President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser and as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In response, right-wing media mounted a public onslaught, claiming that Fauci is stepping down to avoid investigations if Republicans take control of Congress in November, directing the GOP to investigate Fauci if the party should take control, proclaiming Fauci should face criminal charges and be sent to prison, and generally attacking his character.

Even Fox anchor Neil Cavuto, who had previously served as a seeming voice of reason and who has previously interviewed Fauci at the network, pressed the retiring public servant about whether his retirement was really just “a way to avoid Republican investigators.”

Video

Citation From the August 23, 2022, edition of Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto

Right-wing media, especially Fox News, have been maligning Fauci since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz noted, then-President Donald Trump’s “media supporters could not or would not try to directly challenge the president,” whose administration’s response included recommendations of stay-at-home orders and other social distancing measures, “and settled instead on targeting Fauci, who was a face of the administration’s response.” The smear campaign against Fauci didn’t stop;over a roughly 10-month period in 2021, Fox News personalities attacked him over 400 times.

Fauci may plan to retire at the end of the year, but the right-wing echo chamber is prepared to hound him for years to come if given the opportunity.

Claims that Fauci is stepping down to avoid oversight

Fox prime-time star Tucker Carlsonspeculated that Fauci may have resigned because he thinks the Republicans are going to take over Congress in the midterm elections and does not want to be investigated by them. “So it's possible that Tony Fauci might want to resign before he has to explain all of that to a new Congress,” Carlson said. “He might want to get out of town now and move to, say, Cambridge, find a safe place to hide before the reckoning. Just a thought. Because honestly, there's a lot to answer for.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/22/22]

Fox prime-time host Laura Ingrahamspeculated that “Fauci thinks this retirement would save him from a congressional investigation or a subpoena.” She then interviewed Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who said congressional Republicans would want to investigate Fauci based on the conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 virus was human-made. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 8/22/22]

Right-wing radio host Buck Sexton claimed, “Sociopathic liar and political hack Fauci is making a run for it before Republicans can take over the House.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

Right-wing radio host Dana Loesch claimed Fauci “doesn't want that GOP-controlled House oversight.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

Fox prime-time host Jesse Wattersclaimed that Fauci “seems to think stepping down before Republicans take the House will get him off scot-free.” Watters made this pronouncement just hours after Fauci appeared on Fox and told Neil Cavuto that he would not avoid appearing before Congress. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 8/23/22]

The National Pulse’s Raheem Kassam: “BREAKING: Fauci to step down right before Republicans are expected to take control of Congress and commence investigations into his funding of the Wuhan Lab and pandemic response.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

Conservative pundit Mercedes Schlapp claimed “it's no coincidence” that Fauci announced he will step down in December, noting that it “is right after Republicans will take back the House and immediately plan oversight into our pandemic response and hisfunding of gain of function research at the Wuhan Lab.”[Twitter, 8/22/22]

Calls for congressional Republicans to investigate Fauci

Fox prime-time host Sean Hannity declared that “Fauci still needs to be held accountable for all of the lies and misdirections.” He then interviewedSen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who predicted that if there is a Republican-controlled Congress, it would subpoena Fauci to testify next year. [Fox News, Hannity, 8/22/22]

Fox’s “news side” presented a more respectable face for the right’s determination to investigate Fauci. Fox contributor Marc Thiessen discussed the need for an “after-action study” of the nation’s COVID-19 response, while blaming Fauci for various aspects of both the pandemic response and its economic consequences. Concluding the segment, co-anchor Bill Hemmer said that in “2023, I think we’ll see him again.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 8/23/22]

Fox anchor Sandra Smith asked Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS): “What do you want to see happen as far as holding Dr. Anthony Fauci accountable for his actions during this pandemic?” Marshall then repeatedly and falsely accused Fauci of covering up the supposed creation of COVID-19 in a lab, statements which Smith did not challenge. [Fox News, America Reports, 8/23/22; FactCheck.org, 5/19/22]

Former White House adviser Peter Navarro said on Newsmax that the government should to “take that SOB’s passport” so Fauci cannot flee a Republican-led congressional investigation.Navarro himself was recently indicted for a charge of contempt of Congress over his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. [Newsmax, Eric Bolling: The Balance, 8/22/22; NPR, 6/4/22]

Calls for Fauci’s to face criminal charges and/or prison

“Stop the Steal” organizer Alex Bruesewitz wrote that Fauci “should be investigated, and quite frankly arrested, for what he put our country through.” [Twitter, 8/22/22; Media Matters, 7/27/22]

Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk declared that Fauci “belongs in prison.” He continued, “Seize the passports. Freeze his pension, distribute it to his victims. Lawyer up. Time to hold him accountable for the last 3 years.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

Right-wing radio host Clay Travis wrote that Fauci “belongs in prison,” claiming he is the “most destructive bureaucrat in United States history.” Travis also said Fauci’s “‘leadership’ on covid will — in the decades ahead — come to be seen as one of the greatest and most destructive failures in our nation’s history.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

Right-wing podcasters Diamond & Silk: “Fauci doesn't need to just step down, he should be arrested for Crimes Against Humanity!” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

Attacks on Fauci’s character

In his opening monologue, Fox's Carlson said, “On some level, even Tony Fauci knows that Tony Fauci is in fact a dangerous fraud.” Carlson further elaborated that Fauci “has done things that in most countries at most times in history would be understood perfectly clearly to be very serious crimes.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8/22/22]

Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy called Fauci an “authoritarian monster.” She claimed Fauci “led our country on aChinese-style approach instead of an American-style where we look at science.” [Fox News, The Five, 8/23/22]

Washington Examiner’s Haisten Willis described Fauci as someone some people “feel is … self-promoting, unaccountable, and even liable for helping start the pandemic.” [Washington Examiner, 8/22/22]

Fox News contributor and Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen: “Never has anybody been so wrong about so much for so long and been so lionized as Anthony Fauci.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 8/23/22]

Sean Duffy, Fox News contributor and former member of Congress, repeatedly accused Fauci of having “Chinese” principles instead of American ones in his supposed use of the power of government. [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 8/23/22]

Fox News’ Katie Pavlich said it is “sickening” the way Fauci supposedly let “power and fame” go to his head.Pavlich tweeted, “In March 2020 Fauci actually told the truth about who Wuhan coronavirus was deadly for, the elderly and those with comorbidities. He said it was ‘very clear.’ He also said drug store masks don’t work. Then, he got a taste of power and fame he just couldn’t let go. Sickening.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz on Fauci: “His half-century of ‘public service’ was a disaster for us. His handling of covid should be studied in the future as a blueprint of what not to do.” [Twitter, 8/22/22]

Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro called Fauci “a true douchebag.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 08/23/22]

Right-wing media gadflyBenny Johnson called Fauci “the most evil and malevolent character in my lifetime.” [The Benny Show, via YouTube, 8/23/22]

thieves now mock the rule of law in 'progressive' cities ...

:{https://nypost.com:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;display:inline"):}::{ › 2021 › 06 › 17 › thieves-now-mock-the-rule-of-law-in-progressive-cities-like-san-francisco:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;opacity:1;visibility:visible"):}:

Jun 17, 2021In January 2020, San Francisco's new "progressive" district attorney, Chesa Boudin (a son of convicted cop killers), made decreasing penalties for nonviolent offenses a cornerstone of his ...

pro disinfo

https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/hypocrisy-of-media-censors-claim-to-be-against-misinformation/

labelled opinion

no lnx many

inside the hypocrisy of media manipulators, censors who claim to fight misinformation

By Christine Rosen

December 14, 2021 Updated

George Soros, billionaire and founder of Soros Fund Management LLC,

Billionaire George Soros will play a critical role in funneling millions into the Aspen Institute's information suppression project.

Climate deniers are going all in with disinfo for COP26 (Sorry, Teslas really do produce fewer emissions)

TAGGED:COP26, DENIAL, TESLA October 27th, 2021

As the world gears up for the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow next week, deniers are already laying the groundwork for the disinformation they’ll peddle in a hopefully-vain attempt to recreate their success in using Climategate disinformation to disrupt the Copenhagen COP.

While every year brings a new and exciting display of denial, a few recent stories stand out as top candidates for the fossil fueled opposition to latch onto when confronted with the possibility that letting polluters profit our planet to death is a bad idea.By Climate Denier Roundup

Though we can expect some totally-unhinged and _{unsubstantiated claims about banning beef,}_ one of the biggest recurring arguments is also one of the most misleading, that the Texas blackouts offer a warning of what climate policies will make common.

For example, Sean Spicer, who hasn’t quite danced his Trump-stained reputation clean yet, has a new book out, and the Koch-funded RealClear _{ran an excerpt}_. It opens with a heart-tugging story about a 12 year old who died of hypothermia, and then quickly exploits the child’s death to score cheap, and completely false, political points. The 80+ deaths “were caused by political decisions,” Spicer writes, and “the tragedy of the Texas blackout was partially the result of the growth of the green energy industry.”

But the majority of the _{responsibility for the blackouts}_ can be laid at the fossil fuel industry’s failure to do the one thing it claims it does best: Be reliable.

That reliability claim is also at the core of another strain of disinformation we’re seeing around COP26, which is the suggestion that the Teslas parked at the Gleneagles Hotel that the VIPs will use in Glasgow are going to be charged by diesel generators. “Couldn’t make it up,” _{one viral tweet claimed}_.

It was used as _{the basis for a ZeroHedge story}_, and the same narrative has been picked up by _{the UK’s Spectator}_ magazine, and the climate _{denial blog Watts Up With That}_.

The problem? Well, it turns out you could make it up, and they did, as it turns out it’s Jaguar-brand electric vehicles they’re using, not Teslas, and while the COP26 crew may use supplemental generators to charge the vehicles somewhere, Gleneagles Hotel has denied setting up any chargers, while conference organizers _{told Alastair Dalton for the Scotsman}_ that any spare generators are going to be filled with cooking waste oil, AKA biodiesel, not petroleum-based diesel.

Although unreasonable for faux-populist conservatives to attack the rich elite pushing for climate action, it does seem odd that they’re apparently incapable of doing so in an honest way, despite that being so very, very easy to do.

For example, _{**:{a recent:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{ New York Post op-ed:(style="background-color:#ff6600;"):}:**}_ does a fine job of criticizing the billionaire boy’s club of Bezos, Musk, Gates, and Jobs(‘s widow), but also throws in some fakery for good measure.

While Paula Froelich is correct that “the electric cars made by Musk’s Tesla are not emissions free,”she then goes on to claim that the Wall Street Journal showed that “building one of his cars actually generates more emissions because of the metals needed for its lithium-ion batteries.”

But when _{you click through to the WSJ story}_, the subheadline notes that while “there are caveats”, “EVs produce fewer emissions overall than their gas-powered counterparts.” That’s because while the manufacturing of an electric vehicle requires more materials than a gas-powered car, the pollution from refueling far outweighs that initial difference.

Drive a Tesla for more than (at most) 20,000 miles, and you’ve broken even on emissions.

Drive it for a car’s average lifespan of 150,000 miles, and not only has the EV cost you less in ownership (because electricity is cheaper than gas) but you’ve also generated less than half as much pollution.

So if they had ordered and produced new electric cars for the COP26, and then immediately scrapped them afterwards, then yes, that would be hypocritical and wasteful. But the UK government has already said that the cars “have all been sourced from existing fleets in the UK,” so there’s not even that initial manufacturing pollution to count, dramatically improving the emissions footprint.

But, as one local environmental campaigner, Colin Howden, told the Scotsman, what they could’ve done to reduce emissions even further (and avoid this issue all together) is have the dignitaries take advantage of the “fleet of new electric buses” in Glasgow.

(Originally appeared at DailyKos.)

1220 an tabloid?

nY Daily News celebrates Trump’s Electoral College defeat: ‘It’s over, even if the fat man won’t sing’

https://nypost.com/:{2020/10/20/:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:doj-agrees-hunter-biden-emails-are-not-russian-disinformation-report/

no vid

Department of Justice agrees with spy chief John Ratcliffe’s assessment that emails published by The Post from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden are not part of a Russian disinformation campaign, a report said.

Sources told Fox News that the FBI is also indeed in possession of the Hunter Biden laptop that the emails were copied from.

The first story The Post published about Biden’s emails included a photo of a Delaware federal subpoena that show both the computer and its hard drive were seized by the FBI in December, after a computer repairman said he alerted federal authorities to their existence.

On Monday, Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, said the emails were “not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”

“Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” Ratcliffe said.

"Let me be clear: The intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that. And we have shared no intelligence with Adam Schiff, or any member of Congress,” he said.

Rep. Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, had claimed the emails were part of a smear orchestrated by Moscow.

Ratcliffe blasted Schiff for the allegations.

“It’s funny that some of the people who complain the most about intelligence being politicized are the ones politicizing the intelligence,” Ratcliffe said. “Unfortunately, it is Adam Schiff who said the intelligence community believes the Hunter Biden laptop and emails on it are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/ny-post-reporter-refused-to-allow-his-byline-on-flawed-hunter-biden-story-nyt

we've all seen this absurd Hunter Biden October "surprise" story by now.

In short, it makes no sense. A mystery figure dropped off a wet laptop at a Delaware computer shop, didn't leave his name, and never picked it up. It had all sorts of incriminating info on it, as well as a Beau Biden Foundation sticker. Uh huh. Because that's ordinary human behavior. And somehow Rudy Giuliani, who's been searching high and low for Hunter Biden dirt, got hold of it. And in no way is this the kind of Russian disinformation campaign the White House received a warning about just last year — a warning that specifically noted Giuliani's gullibility, by the way.

Well, it gets worse. One of the original authors of the story refused to put his byline on it because, well, he smelled bullshit.

The New York Times:

The New York Post's front-page article about Hunter Biden on Wednesday was written mostly by a staff reporter who refused to put his name on it, two Post employees said.

Bruce Golding, a reporter at the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid since 2007, did not allow his byline to be used because he had concerns over the article's credibility, the two Post employees said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

Well, that's some interesting information they neglected to share.

As deadline approached, editors pressed staff members to add their bylines to the story — and at least one aside from Mr. Golding refused, two Post journalists said. A Post spokeswoman had no comment on how the article was written or edited.

So who got the byline? Well, that's an interesting story. The lead author of the piece was Emma-Jo Morris, a former associate producer for the always scrupulous Sean Hannity. And, whoa, she never had a byline in The Post before. Her co-author? Gabrielle Fonrouge, who's been with the newspaper since 2014. And that's an interesting story, too.

Ms. Fonrouge had little to do with the reporting or writing of the article, said three people with knowledge of how it was prepared. She learned that her byline was on the story only after it was published, the people said.

Rudy Giuliani is not mentally all there, and yet The New York Post staked its reputation — such as it is — on the melange of coffee breath molecules and gross loose skin that comprise his essence.

Just shows you how desperate they've become.

Let's support Joe, and let's make sure we give him a Democratic Senate.

We have them on the run. Let's drown them in the river.

media Matters, *Analysis / Advocacy: New York Times report exposes the shoddy journalism behind New York Post's Biden hit piece*, John Whitehouse, Oct. 18,

Katie Robertson has a must-read piece up at The New York Times about the reaction inside the New York Post's newsroom to its shoddy hit piece on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter earlier this week. There's a lot in there, so please go read the whole thing.

Now that you've done that, here are some of the key takeaways:

The report was mostly written by a staff writer who refused to put their name on it, per two Post sources.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani says he gave the material to the Post because he was worried other outlets would practice actual journalism: “either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out."
Top figures at the paper were involved in deciding how to proceed, including editor in chief Stephen Lynch, digital editor in chief Michelle Gotthelf, and adviser Colin Allan.
Editors at the Post pressed people there to add their name to the byline, according to two sources who spoke to Robertson.

Of the two bylines on the piece, we had known that Emma-Jo Morris had worked at Sean Hannity's Fox News show recently, and that her Instagram had pictures of her with figures like Hannity, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon. Robertson adds that Gabrielle Fonrouge, who had the other byline on the piece, did not know that she had a byline until after the piece went live. Robertson writes that three sources told her that Fonrouge “had little to do with the reporting or writing of the article.”

The one outlet that embraced the report wholeheartedly from the get go was Fox News, which ran over 100 segments on the story in the first two and a half days, despite all the red flags.

The New York Post is the corporate cousin of Fox News, and is part of News Corp, which is run by Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch, Co-Chairman Lachlan Murdoch, and CEO Robert Thomson. This is how Murdoch-style journalism works.

qresear.ch › ...

Emma-Jo Morris @EmmaJoNYC. It's Monday morning, 2 weeks before the presidential election, and @nypost has been barred from posting on Twitter for 5 days ...

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/how-to-not-be-a-useful-idiot-for-the-rights-smear-machine/

Trump is trying hard to recreate the perfect storm that landed him in the White House in 2016 despite being the most unpopular candidate in the modern polling era. That year, the Clinton campaign's hacked emails were dribbled out over the final six weeks of the race. There wasn't much to them, but internal campaign communications tend to be frank and are easily mined for scandalettes. Having established the storyline that Clinton was as corrupt as Trump, they provided a steady stream of stories with "emails reveal" in the headlines which served to reinforce the right's narrative.

We can expect a similar stream of stories of ostensible "smoking guns" stemming from Hunter Biden's emails (whether hacked or fabricated) to come our way in the final weeks of this race.And some people who want to see themselves as fair will inadvertently amplify the right's preferred narratives by assuming that there must be something there.

So it's very important to keep in mind that the "scandal" is supposed to be that then-Vice President Joe Biden pushed for the removal of Ukraine's top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to stave off an investigation into Burisma Holdings--the Ukrainian gas company whose Board Hunter sat on--in order to protect his son. It is supposed to be a story about conflict of interest--of the elder Biden using the office of the Vice Presidency to help his son.

There is not a shred of truth to those claims. The effort to get Shokin fired "was prompted by a push for anti-corruption reforms developed at the State Department and coordinated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund," The Washington Postreported. And according to CNN, a bipartisan "letter from 2016 shows that Republican senators pushed for reforms to Ukraine's prosecutor general's office and judiciary, echoing calls then-Vice President Joe Biden made at the time."

Shokin was corrupt, and that was a problem. Vitaliy Kasko, a former deputy of Shokin's who resigned over his boss's habit of stymieing corruption probes, toldBloombergthat Shokin was not investigating Burisma during the period in question. "There was no pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against" the firm or its owner. "It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015," Kasko said. And Daria Kaleniuk, a prominent Ukrainian anti-corruption crusader, told The Washington Post that"Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation."

Without some impropriety on Joe Biden's part, Hunter Biden's business ventures aren't a story. He isn't running for office. Like many, if not most children of the powerful, the younger Biden leveraged both his family name and the connections he'd made at Yale to land various business deal and secure a cushy, high-paying position on a corporate board. Both Hunter and Joe Biden have acknowledged that associating himself with a shady Ukrainian gas company--as opposed to, say, a reputable American or Western European firm--was an error of judgment, but it was neither illegal nor unethical. This isn't a meritocracy, and this is one way that wealth and power are reproduced from one generation to the next. It's distasteful and unfair, but that's a class issue, not a scandal. Hunter isn't running for office and his judgment, or lack thereof, isn't a matter of public concern.

Joe Biden spent years in the Senate, and year after year he ranked among the least wealthy members of that body. We know how he came into his wealth--mostly through a multi-million dollar book advance and speaking gigs after leaving office. Biden may not be everyone's cup of tea, but there's no evidence that he's corrupt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_(United_Kingdom)

the Sun is a tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. As a broadsheet, it was founded in 1964 as a successor to the Daily Herald, and became a tabloid in 1969 after it was purchased by its current owner.^[7] It is published by the News Group Newspapers division of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.^[8][9] Since The Sun on Sunday was launched in February 2012, the paper has been a seven-day operation. The Sun previously had the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the United Kingdom,^[8] but it was overtaken by rival Metro in March 2018.^[10]

In 2012, The Sun on Sunday was launched to replace the closed News of the World, employing some of its former journalists.^[11][12][13] The average circulation for The Sun on Sunday in September 2019 was 1,052,465.^[14]

In February 2020, it had an average daily circulation of 1.2 million.^[6] The Sun has been involved in many controversies in its history, including its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster. Regional editions of the newspaper for Scotland (The Scottish Sun), Northern Ireland (The Sun), and the Republic of Ireland (The Irish Sun) are published in Glasgow, Belfast, and Dublin, respectively. There is currently no separate Welsh edition of The Sun; readers in Wales get the same edition as readers in England.

History

The Sun before Rupert Murdoch

heated 320

it took Maine Governor Janet Mills 12 days since the first case of novel coronavirus hit to implement the type of restrictive social distancing policies scientists overwhelmingly recommend to halt disease spread, including the closure of nonessential businesses.

It took her only five days, however, to delay the state’s ban on single-use plastic bags, using a scientifically questionable theory that reusable bags pose an outsized risk of spreading COVID-19.

Since Mills’ March 17 order, reusable grocery bags in Maine have become taboo. City officials are now discouraging shopping from bringing them to the store, claiming they will threaten grocery story workers. “According to current research and understanding, COVID-19 can survive on various surfaces for hours and in some cases days,” Portland City Manager Jon Jennings said in a news release last week.

And though Mills was the first state governor in America to give credence to this theory, she hasn’t been the last. Over the weekend, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu outright prohibited shoppers from bringing reusable bags to stores. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker did the same on Wednesday. “From now on, reusable bags are prohibited and all regulations on plastic bag bans are lifted,” he said.

This, however, is likely just the beginning of the plastic industry’s war on reusable bags. Because as the pandemic has picked up steam in America, so too has the industry’s push for policy and culture shifts to encourage single-use plastics, and ban reusable alternatives. Their allies in the news media, oil and gas industry, and conservative think tank world are all quickly lining up behind them—and together, they’re putting pressure on the public and the federal government get on board.

Last week, the Plastics Industry Association asked the Department of Health and Human Services to make a national pronouncement supporting single-use plastics and advocating against reusable grocery bags, claiming they will worsen the pandemic. “Study after study after study have shown that reusable bags can carry viruses and bacteria, spread them throughout a grocery store, and live on surfaces for up to three days,” they claimed.

But those three studies don’t actually say what the industry claims. Taken together, they do not provide sufficient evidence that reusable grocery bags pose a greater threat to consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic than single-use plastic grocery bags.

Let’s go through them one by one.

1) The 10-year-old American Chemistry Council-funded study that looked at 84 reusable bags in two states and found no disease-causing bacteria

The first piece of research that the plastic industry says strongly suggests a correlation between reusable grocery bags and coronavirus spread was this 2010 study funded by the American Chemistry Council, an industry group which represents plastics interests. Conducted by researchers at the University of Arizona, it was published in the journal Food Protection Trends in 2011.

Analyzing just 84 reusable bags collected in California and Arizona, the studies authors concluded that “Large numbers of bacteria were found in almost all bags and coliform bacteria in half.” They did not, however, find any pathogenic bacteria or strains of E. Colithat actually make you sick. As Consumer Reports noted at the time, “They only found bacteria that don’t normally cause disease, but do cause disease in people with weakened immune systems.”

“A person eating an average bag of salad greens gets more exposure to these bacteria than if they had licked the insides of the dirtiest bag from this study,” Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist at Consumers Union, said in the article. “These bacteria can be found lots of places, so no need to go overboard.”

The reason there was bacteria on the bags was because people didn’t wash them. If people washed the bags, the study said, 99.9 percent of all bacteria was destroyed.

2) The study that looked at 30 reusable bags and said essentially the same thing

The second study, published in the international journalFood Controlin 2019, found microbes capable of causing food-borne illness on the bags. This time, half the bags tested had coliform bacteria on them and some even had E. coli.

This makes sense, again, because the bags had a bunch of food in them, and were not washed or sanitized. As Johns Hopkins University infectious disease specialist told Bustle at the time, “Reusable shopping bags, like anything, can accumulate micoorganisms from the environment. Unless the bag is visibly soiled, most of the risk is not worth worrying about.”

Of course, this means coronavirus could be on your bag, because coronavirus can live on plastic surfaces for up to 3 days. But neither of these studies indicate that it has any greater risk of being on your reusable bag than, say, your money, your phone, or your hands, which also get a lot of use at the grocery story. Nor do they indicate that reusable bags made of plastic have a greater risk of holding the virus than single-use plastic bags, which could be infected with pathogens during transportation, manufacturing, or handling.

Cameron Wolfe, an associate professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Duke University, told the Wall Street Journal something similar, when talking about how companies like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts have stopped filling customers’ reusable cups out of fear of coronavirus. “It’s drawing a pretty long bow to believe this will be meaningfully impactful,” he said. “It’s an incredibly low likelihood that the cup would be the primary vehicle for transmission to occur.”

The article added: “Coronavirus can survive for a period outside the body and is transmitted through droplets like those generated by a cough or a sneeze. If a cup is infected, its owner probably is too, said Mr. Wolfe, making handing over cash and touching door handles potentially just as risky.

“You’d have a better impact if you told customers with active coughs not to come in, or to use hand sanitizer before approaching the coffee stand,” he said.”

3) The study that looked at one reusable bag that someone had literally vomited next to in a bathroom and then gave to a group of children.

Yeah, honestly, like I can’t even go there with this one. You can read about that study here.

Also, coronavirus is not a norovirus. It is literally not the same thing.

No evidence, no problem

There is certainly a chance that coronavirus could live on our reusable grocery bags if those bags come in contact with an infected person—particularly if those bags are made of plastic. A study published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the novel coronavirus ismoststable on plastic surfaces.

But that also includes single-use plastic surfaces, said Aaron Bernstein, the director of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment. “This suggests that relying on plastic bags may be the best way to ensure the virus persists in the environment and facilitates spread of the disease.”

Clearly, there is still a debate to be had over the efficacy of plastic bag policies for coronavirus—especially since plastic bag bans in themselves are attempts to address climate change and ocean pollution, two other pressing global crises. It would be foolish to prematurely stop an attempt to address two global crises without a baseline sort of consensus that it would even remotely help the other.

The right and its allies, however, appear to have made up their minds.Energy in Depth, a pro-oil-and-gas drilling industry front group formed by the American Petroleum Institute, wrote an article claiming coronavirus will spread without more single-use plastic bags. The New York Post and the Wall Street Journalhave written editorials in support of reversing bag bans. Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative anti-climate group, is taking out ads on Facebook claiming that plastic bag bans help spread the coronavirus infectio.

[graf twt]

it makes sense why so many right-leaning interest groups would come together on this issue. Before coronavirus, single-use plastic products were falling out of favor, as studies showed they were exacerbating climate change and destroying the ocean. Now, the industry is hoping COVID-19 will make everyone forget all that.

“As the coronavirus spreads across the country, single-use plastics will only become more vital,” Plastics Industry Association President Tony Radoszewski said in a statement last week. “We live longer, healthier, and better because of single-use plastics.”

Bernstein, however, is hoping that we remember something else. “In a crisis, we need science to guide us,” he said. “And that means science done by credible investigators who are supported by organizations without a vested financial interest in a specific outcome of their research.”

...

Wall Street Journal published an editorial on April 23 that derided electric vehicles in Germany as "dirty," based on a recent study that has been called into question by a number of experts and mainstream German news outlets. The Journal's editorial board, which has a history of climate denial, has attacked both German energy policy and electric vehicles (EVs) before.

The dubious study has also been hyped by climate deniers and right-wing outlets in the U.S., including Infowars and The Daily Caller.

:{...

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/how-a-right-wing-disinformation-network-keeps-republicans-steeped-in-lies/

no lnx

How a right-wing disinformation network keeps Republicans steeped in lies

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly December 30, 2019

While Democrats continue to wring their hands over the 2020 presidential primary, Donald Trump and his enablers decided a long time ago that the eventual nominee would be Joe Biden. That explains the pressure the president put on Ukraine to announce an investigation into the Bidens, a move that led to his impeachment.

But just as we saw with the attempts to smear Hillary Clinton in 2016, the disinformation campaign about the Bidens will continue unabated in an effort to drive up negative impressions of the former vice president. Nicholas Grosman has documented the origins of one of those campaigns that is underway.

Hunter Biden is currently involved in a paternity suit in Arkansas. The New York Post recently ran an article titled, “Private-eye firm claims Hunter Biden is linked to multiple criminal probes.” Here’s the lead paragraph.

Hunter Biden is the subject of multiple criminal investigations related to “fraud, money laundering and a counterfeiting scheme,” it’s claimed in court documents filed Monday in his Arkansas paternity case.

The documents they are referring to were filed by a Florida-based private-eye firm, D&A Investigations, and were almost immediately dismissed by the judge because they had nothing to do with the paternity case. Nowhere in the documents did D&A name the agencies behind the purported criminal probes of Biden.

Grossman did what the reporters at theNew York Post apparently couldn’t be bothered to do: he googled D&A Investigations and found their web site. The home page lists “active investigations.”

D&A opened an independent investigation (Transparency) in August 2016 into Hillary R. Clinton (HRC), Jeffrey Epstein & the Democrat National Committee (DNC) claims of: Russia broke into the DNC.

At the time, William J. Clinton (WJC), HRC, John Podesta, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John Kerry were in collusion with Rogue Officials in the British Isles, Hong Kong, Iran, Russia, the Ukraine, United States, et al, to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.

In other words, the firm is dedicated to spreading conspiracy theories—particularly those that originate as Russian propaganda.

Hunter Biden’s attorney, Brent Langdon, responded to the filings by saying that D&A was engaged in “a scheme by a non-party simply to make scandalous allegations in the pending suit to gain some quick media attention.” As confirmation, the charges were never substantiated and were almost immediately dismissed, and yet they’ve caught fire on right wing media.

Two days after the article in the Post, the story showed up on Fox News under the title, “Hunter Biden is subject of criminal probes, says PI firm hinting at more incriminating details.” Other than repeating what had already been reported and using the opportunity to rehash the claims about Burisma, they added that D&A told them “to expect an additional filing soon, and hinted that more incriminating details concerning Hunter Biden’s business dealings would soon come to light.”

The story was then picked up by OAN and made its way to RealClearPolitics. At this point, the title simply reads: “Court Filing Shows Hunter Biden Earned $156 Million From Ukraine Corruption.” We can assume that social media feeds are now inundated with these false claims.

It is worth noting that this attempt to spread disinformation is so blatant that reputable news organizations are simply ignoring it. But as Grossman writes, “to figure out what to do about disinformation, first we need understand how it works.” This case gives us an example of how that happens. Either news organizations like the New York Post, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics are complicit with a firm like D&A Investigations or they aren’t interested in verifying information when it reinforces their biases. As a result, they spread disinformation and lies.

That is how Trump is able to maintain his 40+ percent support in the polls. Republicans have a propaganda network that keeps them steeped in lies. Back in 2016, mainstream media gave credence to those lies about Hillary Clinton in the name of balance.Beyond offering a mea culpa for their complicity, reporters should do their part to expose the propaganda network for what it is. This story would be a good place to start.

mma

papa John’s pizza restaurant founder John Schnatter went on Fox News for a slice of what the network does best: a post-scandal interview to rehabilitate a disgraced conservative’s public image in 30 minutes or less.

In 2018, Schnatter was forced to resign as board chairman of Papa John’s after it was revealed that he used “the N-word” on a conference call with company executives. According to Forbes, the call “was designed as a role-playing exercise for Schnatter in an effort to prevent future public-relations snafus.” Schnatter had previously resigned from his position as CEO in December 2017 after criticizing some NFL players’ ongoing protests against police brutality, but he remains the largest shareholder in the company.

In the past few weeks, Schnatter has been cooking up a comeback -- and serving it up through Murdoch-owned outlets. In September, he gave multiple “exclusive” interviews to Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, and on October 29, he wrote an op-ed for the Murdoch-owned New York Post, criticizing Papa John’s current corporate leadership and expressing regret over his decision to leave. In the op-ed, Schnatter also complained that he was a victim of a false media narrative regarding the conference call.

Schnatter’s next stop on his apology tour was Fox News @ Night with Shannon Bream. Anchor Shannon Bream failed to ask the former CEO, who donated to President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016, about the support he’s received from online hate groups, allegations of sexual misconduct, and what has been described as a “toxic” work culture at the company under his leadership.

Instead, Bream helped Schnatter deliver fresh excuses for his use of the racial slur (which she referred to as “racially charged language”) and praised his former company’s pizza sauce. She also repeated Schnatter’s framing in the New York Post op-ed that his use of the infamous slur was somehow not that bad because New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had also used the word in an interview.

After the former CEO said the conversation in which he used the slur and was forced out of his company as a result was a “positive call” in which he “adamantly expressed” his “disdain for racism,” Bream followed up by framing a defense for his remarks, asking Schnatter if he was “trying to display to people what not to do.” She also set him up to push for a new job at his old company and asked if he feels “there's room in society for people when they do make a mistake.”

Fox News opinion hosts are pros at helping disgraced conservative figures redeem themselves, as Sean Hannity has done for Roy Moore, Roseanne Barr, and Donald Trump Jr., or as Tucker Carlson recently did for Megyn Kelly. Bream’s segment only further disproves her claim that real journalism is “alive and well” at Fox -- in reality, the best the network’s “straight news” division has to offer is free PR for the racist pizza guy.

...vids

mma

ETSY MCCAUGHEY (NEW YORK POST COLUMNIST): The fact is, this is the trial lawyers and ambitious politicians out to make a quick buck. Because the evidence shows that legitimately prescribed opioids are not to blame for this epidemic of deaths. For example, let me just give you some of the facts, Charles. High-dose opioid prescriptions are down 41% since 2010, even though the deaths are way up. And the National Survey of Drug Use and Health shows that 3/4 of opioid addicts and nearly all heroin addicts were never legitimately prescribed an opioid for their own pain.

CHARLES PAYNE (GUEST HOST): Well that goes against early conventional wisdom, is that the majority of folks started with an overabundance of pain medicine. You're saying that's not true.

MCCAUGHEY: That's right. But that's not true. In fact, the Annals of Internal Medicine has a new study showing that 87% of people taken to the ER for an opioid overdose were not prescribed opioids for pain themselves. They stole them. And let me ask you something. If a guy stole a Buick and robbed a bank, would you sue General Motors?

PAYNE: What's a legitimate amount of painkillers, though? You mentioned at the start of this conversation that, you know, that somehow too much wasn't prescribed. It feels like most people -- doctors, pharmacies, drug makers, Purdue in particular -- have acknowledged that maybe too many opioids were prescribed, going further back than to even 2010. Was there at some point too much of these pills being prescribed?

MCCAUGHEY: It's probably true that they were prescribed in too large quantities so that people didn't use the full quantity, put them in their medicine chest, their kids stole them, their neighbors stole them, somebody working in the home stole them. A lot of these pills on the street are stolen. Others, of course, are manufactured in huge quantities and flooding the marketplace.

PAYNE: Was there a responsibility for Johnson & Johnson and others to talk about the possibility of addiction?

MCCAUGHEY: Perhaps. But in the law, there's something called proximate cause, and Johnson & Johnson has a bench trial, not a jury trial, for a very strong reason. That is, they can present the facts to the judge, and I give them credit for not just settling the way so many of the other pharmaceutical companies did. Just throwing money at these trial lawyers and saying leave me alone, because the fact is, they're not going to be able to prove proximate cause.

PAYNE: If, though, you're wrong for whatever reason, and they lose this case, then that's -- I mean, listen, I'm with you, I hate when companies settle, I hate when people settle, I hate the whole thing, I hate the whole shakedown --

MCCAUGHEY: You think they should sue McDonald's for the obesity epidemic?

PAYNE: People want to do that. But this is different though, right? I mean, you know, listen, as much as I like a Big Mac I can never say I was ever actually addicted to one.

MCCAUGHEY: That's right. But there are plenty of people who eat too much. And the fact is individuals, including teenagers or their parents, have a responsibility to monitor their own conduct.

Reuters: Oklahoma, Johnson & Johnson face off in first opioid crisis trial

Previously:

Fox & Friends blames Medicaid expansion and legalized marijuana for making the opioid crisis worse

On CNN, Trump supporter Betsy McCaughey calls sexual assault allegations against Trump "man-shaming"

Lou Dobbs guest: Americans "are getting raped by all of the expense of" immigration

weekly world news defunct, editied by ed klein

https://nypost.com/2016/11/17/how-mitt-romneys-campaign-manager-took-down-hillary/

New York Post is an American daily newspaper, primarily distributed in New York City and its surrounding area. It is the 13th-oldest and seventh-most-widely circulated newspaper in the United States.^[2] Established in 1801 by federalistand Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, it became a respected broadsheet in the 19th century, under the name New York Evening Post. The modern version of the paper is published in tabloid format.

In 1976, Rupert Murdoch bought the Post for US$30.5 million.^[3] Since 1993, the Post has been owned by News Corporation and its successor, News Corp, which had owned it previously from 1976 to 1988. Its editorial offices are located at 1211 Avenue of the Americas.

[hide]

History

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2016)

The New York Post, established on November 16, 1801 as the New-York Evening Post, describes itself as the nation's oldest continuously published daily newspaper. The Hartford Courant, believed to be the oldest continuously published newspaper, was founded in 1764 as a semi-weekly paper; it did not begin publishing daily until 1836. The New Hampshire Gazette, which has trademarked its claim of being The Nation's Oldest Newspaper, was founded in 1756, also as a weekly. Moreover, since the 1890s it has been published only for weekends.

19th century

In the summer of 1829, Bryant invited William Leggett, the Locofoco Democrat, to write for the paper. There, in addition to literary and drama reviews, Leggett began to write political editorials. Leggett's classical liberal philosophy entailed a fierce opposition to central banking, a support for voluntary labor unions, and a dedication to laissez-faire economics. He was a member of the Equal Rights Party. Leggett became a co-owner and editor at the Post in 1831,^[citation ^needed] eventually working as sole editor of the newspaper while Bryant traveled in Europe in 1834 through 1835.^[citation ^needed]

The most famous 19th-century New-York Evening Post editor was the poet and abolitionist William Cullen Bryant.^[8] So well respected was theNew-York Evening Post under Bryant's editorship, it received praise from the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, in 1864.^[9]The Post was founded by Alexander Hamilton with about US$10,000 from a group of investors in the autumn of 1801 as the New-York Evening Post,^[4] a broadsheet. Hamilton's co-investors included other New York members of the Federalist Party, such as Robert Troup and Oliver Wolcott,^[5]who were dismayed by the election of Thomas Jefferson as U.S. President and the rise in popularity of the Democratic-Republican Party.^[6] The meeting at which Hamilton first recruited investors for the new paper took place in then-country weekend villa that is now Gracie Mansion.^[7]Hamilton chose William Coleman as his first editor.^[6]

Another co-owner of the paper was John Bigelow.^[citation ^needed] Born in Malden-on-Hudson, New York, John Bigelow, Sr. graduated in 1835 from Union College, where he was a member of the Sigma Phi Society and the Philomathean Society, and was admitted to the bar in 1838.^[citation ^needed]From 1849 to 1861, he was one of the editors and co-owners of the New York Evening Post.^[citation ^needed]

In 1881 Henry Villard took control of the New-York Evening Post, as well as The Nation, which became the Post's weekly edition. With this acquisition, the paper was managed by the triumvirate of Carl Schurz, Horace White and Edwin L. Godkin.^[10] When Schurz left the paper in 1883, Godkin became editor-in-chief.^[11] White became editor-in-chief in 1899, and remained in that role until his retirement in 1903.^[12][13]

In 1897, both publications passed to the management of Villard's son, Oswald Garrison Villard,^[14] a founding member of both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People^[15] and the American Civil Liberties Union.^[16]

1918 to 1976

Villard sold the paper in 1918, after widespread allegations of pro-German sympathies during World War I hurt its circulation. The new owner was Thomas Lamont, a senior partner in the Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan & Co.. Unable to stem the paper's financial losses, he sold it to a consortium of 34 financial and reform political leaders, headed by Edwin Francis Gay, dean of the Harvard Business School, whose members included Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Conservative Cyrus H. K. Curtis^[17]—publisher of the Ladies Home Journal—purchased the New-York Evening Post in 1924^[18] and briefly turned it into a non-sensational tabloid in 1933.^[18]

In 1934, J. David Stern purchased the paper, changed its name to the New York Post,^[18] and restored its broadsheet size and liberal perspective.^[19]

In 1939, Dorothy Schiff purchased the paper. Her husband, George Backer, was named editor and publisher.^[20] Her second editor (and third husband) Ted Thackreybecame co-publisher and co-editor with Schiff in 1942.^[21] Together, they recast the newspaper into its current tabloid format.^[22] In 1948 The Bronx Home News merged with it.^[23] In 1949, James Wechsler became editor of the paper, running both the news and the editorial pages. In 1961, he turned over the news section to Paul Sannand remained as editorial-page editor until 1980.

Under Schiff's tenure the Post was devoted to liberalism, supporting trade unions and social welfare, and featured some of the most-popular columnists of the time, such as Joseph Cookman, Drew Pearson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Max Lerner, Murray Kempton, Pete Hamill, and Eric Sevareid, in addition to theatre critic Richard Watts, Jr. and Broadway columnist Earl Wilson.

Murdoch ownership

In 1976, Rupert Murdoch bought the Post for US$30.5 million.^[24] The Post at this point was the only surviving afternoon daily in New York City and its circulation under Schiff had grown by two-thirds, particularly after the failure of the competing World Journal Tribune. However, the rising cost of operating an afternoon daily in a city with worsening daytime traffic congestion, combined with mounting competition from expanded local radio and TV news cut into the Post's profitability, though it made money from 1949 until Schiff's final year of ownership, when it lost $500,000. (The paper has lost money ever since).^[6] Under Murdoch's watch, the Post veered sharply to theright editorially, in accordance with Murdoch's views.

In late October 1995, the Post announced plans to change its Monday through Saturday publication and start a Sunday edition,^[25] which it last published briefly in 1989.^[26] On April 14, 1996, the Post delivered its new Sunday edition at the cost of 50 cents per paper by keeping its size to 120 pages.^[27] The amount, significantly less than Sunday editions from competitors The Daily News and The New York Times, was part of the Post's efforts "to find a niche in the nation's most competitive newspaper market".^[27]

In December 2012, Murdoch announced that Jesse Angelo had been appointed publisher.^[28]

Style

One of the paper's most famous headlines, from the April 15, 1983 edition

Murdoch imported the tabloid journalism style of many of his Australian and British newspapers, such as The Sun, which was the highest selling daily newspaper in the UK for a long time. This style was typified by the Post's famous headlines such as "Headless body in topless bar" (shown on the right, written by Vincent Musetto who died in June 2015). In its 35th-anniversary edition, New York Magazine listed this as one of the greatest headlines. It also has five other Post headlines in its "Greatest Tabloid Headlines" list.^[29]

Because of the institution of federal regulations limiting media cross-ownership after Murdoch's purchase of WNEW-TV (nowWNYW-TV) and four other stations from Metromedia to launch the Fox Broadcasting Company, Murdoch was forced to sell the paper for $37.6 million in 1988 to Peter S. Kalikow, a real-estate magnate with no news experience.^[30] When Kalikow declaredbankruptcy in 1993,^[30] the paper was temporarily managed by Steven Hoffenberg,^[30] a financier who later pleaded guilty tosecurities fraud;^[31] and, for two weeks, by Abe Hirschfeld,^[32] who made his fortune building parking garages. After a staff revolt against the Hoffenberg-Hirschfeld partnership—which included publication of an issue whose front page featured the iconic masthead photo of founder Alexander Hamilton with a single tear drop running down his cheek^[33][34]—The Post was again purchased in 1993 by Murdoch's News Corporation. This came about after numerous political officials, including Democraticgovernor of New York Mario Cuomo, persuaded the Federal Communications Commission to grant Murdoch a permanent waiver from the cross-ownership rules that had forced him to sell the paper five years earlier.^[35] Without that FCC ruling, the paper would have shut down. Under Murdoch's renewed direction, the paper continued its conservative editorial viewpoint.^[citation ^needed]

Criticism

The Post has been criticized since the beginning of Murdoch's ownership for sensationalism, blatant advocacy, and conservative bias. In 1980, the Columbia Journalism Review stated "the New York Post is no longer merely a journalistic problem. It is a social problem – a force for evil."^[36]

Perhaps the most serious allegation against the Post is that it is willing to contort its news coverage to suit Murdoch's business needs, in particular that the paper has avoided reporting anything that is unflattering to the government of the People's Republic of China, where Murdoch has invested heavily in satellite television.^[37]

Critics say that the Post allows its editorial positions to shape its story selection and news coverage. Post executive editor Steven D. Cuozzo has responded that thePost "broke the elitist media stranglehold on the national agenda."

According to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, the Post was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York, and the only news outlet to receive more responses calling it "not credible" than credible (44% not credible to 39% credible).^[38]

The Public Enemy song "A Letter to the New York Post" from their album Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black is a complaint about what they believed to be negative and inaccurate coverage blacks received from the paper.

The Post's coverage of the murder of Hasidic landlord Menachem Stark prompted outrage from Jewish communal leaders and public figures.^[39]

Controversies

This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point of view of the subject.Please integrate the section's contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material. (September 2015)

There have been numerous controversies surrounding the Post:

In 1997, a national news story concerning Rebecca Sealfon's victory in the Scripps National Spelling Bee circulated. Sealfon was sponsored by the Daily News, a direct in-market competitor. The Post published a picture of her but altered the photograph to remove the name of the Daily News as printed on a placard she was wearing.^[40]
On November 8, 2000, the Post printed "BUSH WINS!" in a huge headline,^[41] although the presidential election remained in doubt because of the recount needed in Florida. Like the Post, many other newspapers around the country published a similar headline after the four major TV networks called the election for George W. Bush.
On March 10, 2004, the Post re-ran, as a full-color page one photograph,^[42] a photograph that had already been run three days earlier in black and white on page 9, showing the 24-story suicide plunge of a New York University student, who had since been identified as 19-year-old Diana Chien, daughter of a prominent Silicon Valley businessman. Among criticisms leveled at the Post^[43] was their addition of a tightly cropped inset photograph of Chien, a former high-school track athlete, depicting her in mid-jump from an athletic meet, giving the false impression that it was taken during her fatal act, despite the fact that she had fallen face up.
On July 6, 2004, the Post ran an article claiming to have learned exclusively that Senator John Kerry, the Democratic Party's Presidential nominee-in-waiting, had selected former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to be the party's Vice Presidential nominee. The article, under the headline "KERRY'S CHOICE", ran without a byline.^[44] The next day, the Post had to print a new story, "KERRY'S REAL CHOICE", reporting Kerry's actual selection of Senator John Edwards of North Carolina as his running mate.
On April 21, 2006, several Asian-American advocacy groups protested the use of the headline "Wok This Way" for a Post article about Bush's meeting with the Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China.^[45]
On September 29, 2006, Post editor Sarah Polonsky was fired abruptly for accepting gifts.^[46][47]
On September 27, 2006, the Post published an article called "Powder Puff Spooks Keith" that made fun of Countdown host Keith Olbermann receiving an anthraxthreat from an unknown terrorist.^[48]
On December 7, 2006, the Post doctored a front-page photograph to depict the co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group—James Baker and Lee Hamilton — in primate fur, under the headline "SURRENDER MONKEYS", inspired by a once-used line from The Simpsons. In defense of the "Surrender Monkeys" headline, media contributor Simon Dumenco wrote an Ad Age article about his love for the Post.^[49]
On February 18, 2009, the Post ran a cartoon by Sean Delonas that depicted a white police officer saying to another white police officer who has just shot achimpanzee on the street: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." The cartoon dually referred to President Obama and to the recent rampage of Travis, a former chimpanzee actor; it was criticized as being in bad taste, primarily by making a reference to the racist stereotype of African-Americansbeing portrayed as apes.^[50] Civil rights activist Al Sharpton called the cartoon "troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys."^[51] The Post has defended itself by stating that the cartoon was deliberately misinterpreted by its critics.^[52]
On December 4, 2012, the Post used a picture taken by a freelance photographer, R. Umar Abbasi, of a 58-year-old man identified as Ki Suk Han struggling to climb back up onto the platform of the 49th Street station as a subway train approached. The caption on the front read, "Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die" on top, and "DOOMED" in large, boldface print on the bottom. The image caused outrage among many, as its use was viewed as exploiting a tragedy for commercial gain., though Abbasi stated that since he was not strong enough to pull the man up, he had attempted to use the flash on his camera to alert the driver of the oncoming train.^[53]
Aspects of the *Post's coverage of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing were criticized. The Post reported in several stories on the day of the attack that the death toll was 12, while most organizations reported two and then three fatalities. In addition, they reported that a Saudi national was being held as a suspect, but Boston Police denied this and said they had no suspects in custody.^[54] Additionally, the April 18 cover of the Post featured a full-page photo of two young men the paper described as being sought by law enforcement in possible connection with the attack. CBS News reporter John Miller reported that the two men are not considered suspects by the FBI. The apparent insinuation by the Post that they were suspects was denounced by media critics.^[55] In June 2013, the two men, Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi, sued the Post for libel over the story.^[56] In 2014, the suit was settled.^[57][58]*
On January 5, 2014, following the abduction and murder of Brooklyn businessman Menachem Stark,^[59] the Post cover story featured a picture of the victim dressed in his traditional Hasidic garb accompanied by the headline asking "Who didn't want him dead?"^[60] That front page sparked outrage for its insinuation that the murder was justified vigilantism.^{[61][62][63][64][65]} On that same day, some New York City elected officials condemned the Post's cover story. In a press conference led by Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams,^[66] New York City Public Advocate Letitia James declared, "Today [the New York Post has] given license to murder!" James then asked that "every government official should refrain from advertising in the New York Post, every government official should withdraw any governmental notice from the New York Post, and everyone should condemn the New York Post."^[67]

The Post and the Daily News often take potshots at each other's work and accuracy, particularly in their respective gossip-page items.

In certain editions of the February 14, 2007, newspaper, an article referring to then-Senator Hillary Clinton's support base for her 2008 presidential run referred to then-Senator Barack Obama as "Osama";^[68] the paper realized its error and corrected it for the later editions and the website.^[69] The Post noted the error and apologized in the February 15, 2007, edition.^[70] Earlier, on January 20, 2007, the Post received some criticism^[71] for running a potentially misleading headline, "'Osama' Mud Flies at Obama",^[72] for a story that discussed rumors that Obama had been raised as a Muslim and concealed it.

http://nypost.com/2016/03/30/being-a-vegetarian-could-kill-you-science-warns/

http://www.alternet.org/food/vegetarianism-isnt-cancer-causing-despite-media

cornell, ny post

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TABLOID

http://nypost.com/2016/03/01/how-the-columbia-journalism-school-smeared-exxon/

When the Columbia Journalism School set up a project in 2014 to generate articles on energy and the environment, was its real agenda to exploit ExxonMobil’s reputation as a climate-change villain?

The fellowship project culminated last fall in an LA Times series that accused the world’s largest oil company of downplaying the risks of climate change. InsideClimateNews, an aggressive online site known for its doomsday environmentalism, posted a nearly identical article, tapping Columbia’s research.

The stories paint a dark picture of the oil-industry icon, charging it with a cover-up that echoes the tobacco industry’s denial of health problems from cigarettes.

“Exxon,” the authors say, “made a strategic decision . . . to publicly emphasize doubt and uncertainty regarding climate change science even as its internal research embraced the growing scientific consensus.”

Exxon, the series claimed, had known for years that climate change was real — but hid the science to keep revenues flowing.

The Columbia fellows drew blood. In New York, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman— citing the reports — announced a probe into whether Exxon misled shareholders. Just last week, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli demanded the Securities and Exchange Commission force the company to provide “an annual assessment of the impact on its business of public climate change policies.”

In DC, too, some Democratic congressmen asked the Justice Department to launch a probe into a possible “conspiracy between Shell, ExxonMobil and potentially other companies in the fossil fuel industry.”

Yet the team’s approach appears to be biased and unprofessional. For one thing, it started with the preconceived belief that oil companies are malfeasant for not embracing costly, scientifically dubious amelioration policies.

Columbia’s swerve into advocacy journalism may have its roots in the 2013 appointment of Steve Coll as journalism-school dean. Coll is known for his polemic, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and Power,” which led to his appointment. Months later, Columbia bestowed a Pulitzer on InsideClimateNews. Coll soon hatched the Energy and Environmental Reporting Project, partnering with the Exxon-loathing group.

He also recruited Susanne Rust, a decorated but controversial reporter known for journalism advocacy, most recently with California Watch. Columbia hid the source of the project’s funding: a number of ideologically oriented foundations.

In December, Exxon fired off a letter to Columbia President Lee Bollinger, noting that the fellows had “cherry-picked — and distorted — statements attributed to various company employees to wrongly suggest definitive conclusions about the risk of climate change were reached decades ago by company researchers.”

CJR itself questioned the project’s ethics: Schools are “increasingly producing professional journalism projects, often drawing funds from outside groups to help support the work,” wrote CJR. It challenged the “balance in what subjects get reported, as well as appropriate disclosure of the outside funders and their political leanings.”

The funders? A Who’s Who of anti-fossil-fuel groups: Energy Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Rockefeller Family Fund, Lorana Sullivan Foundation, Tellus Mater Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which also supports the J-school.

Is ExxonMobil a climate-denier — as the series insinuated? Not at all. The company has publicly acknowledged that human-induced climate change is real. In 2007 Chief Executive Rex Tillerson stated: “The risks to society and ecosystems from climate change could prove to be significant.”

But while consensus exists on warming, there is no consensus on how to address it. In a 2004 newspaper advertorial,Exxon said: “Scientific uncertainties continue to limit our ability to make objective, quantitative determinations regarding the human role in recent climate change or the degree and consequences of future change.”

That’s mainstream: Opinions are mixed as to whether humans can meaningfully slow climate trends, and whether diverting trillions is worth the trade-offs.

The Columbia project serves as a warning: A premier university hires an activist to run its J-school. It partners with an activist online Web site to target an energy company previously savaged by its new dean in his book. The effort is funded by foundations whose role as fossil-fuel critics was hidden from readers. In the end, the journalists themselves wind up playing defense.

The series is a finalist for Harvard’s Goldsmith award and is a favorite for a Columbia-awarded Pulitzer. Such prizes would tarnish those schools and the journalism profession that relies on them as ethical barometers.

Jon Entine, founder of the Genetic Literacy Project, is a senior fellow at the University of California-Davis.

entine ny post

Gov. Cuomo’s rumored retreat on fracking shows just how powerful an anti-science, fear-based campaign can be. If reports are right, Cuomo will restrict fracking to a few counties in which...

Lame frack attack by one sloppy hack

March 31, 2012 | 4:00am

New York Times natural-gas reporter Ian Urbina last week launched another salvo in his crusade against the shale-gas industry and the “fracking” method that’s opened up new vistas of gas...

Killing drilling with farcical ‘science’

January 24, 2012 | 5:00am

The academic face of the anti-fracking movement — Cornell marine ecologist Robert Howarth — increasingly looks like he’s willing to turn science into farce. Last spring, the once-obscure professor became...

NY greens’ anti-drilling baloney

January 3, 2012 | 5:00am

Not long ago, environmental groups were heralding natural gas as a “bridge fuel to a more climate-friendly energy supply.” Today, New York “progressives” are leading the charge to demonize it...

TABLOID ny post

thieves now mock the rule of law in 'progressive' cities ...

Climate deniers are going all in with disinfo for COP26 (Sorry, Teslas really do produce fewer emissions)

History

The Sun before Rupert Murdoch

1) The 10-year-old American Chemistry Council-funded study that looked at 84 reusable bags in two states and found no disease-causing bacteria

2) The study that looked at 30 reusable bags and said essentially the same thing

3) The study that looked at one reusable bag that someone had literally vomited next to in a bathroom and then gave to a group of children.

No evidence, no problem

Contents

History

19th century

1918 to 1976

Murdoch ownership

Style

Criticism

Controversies