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https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/genocide-denial-racist-myths-and-fight-against-canceling-columbus-look-0

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Genocide denial, racist myths, and the fight against canceling Columbus: A look at One America News’ anti-Indigenous coverage

Over the past nine months, OAN has disseminated racist, revisionist content about Indigenous people in Canada and the United States. AT&T is responsible.

WRITTEN BY BEATRICE MOUNT

PUBLISHED 11/24/21

Note: The subjects discussed in this article may be triggering for some readers. If you need immediate care or long-term support, the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition has compiled a culturally sensitive resource kit.

Since February, right-wing cable outlet One America News Network has revived some of its favorite white nationalist conspiracy theories, bigoted lies, and racial epithets in a series of incendiary segments targeting Indigenous people of North America. Hosts, reporters, and guests have thrown fit after fit about small recognitions made in 2020 and 2021 to acknowledge the whitewashed history of colonization, power imbalances, and racist depictions of Indigenous people in North America.

In June, the network turned to full-fledged genocide denialism after ground-penetrating radar uncovered over 1,300 unmarked graves of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children killed under Canada’s residential school policy. Canada's 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission called the residential school system a "cultural genocide" of Indigenous people, and the federal government formally apologized for it in 2008.OAN downplayed this history and dismissed the discovery of the graves as an “excuse” for “an anti-Christian crusade.”

In October, OAN used Indigenous Peoples Day to praise Christopher Columbus and Europeans for “civilizing” the “savages.” And throughout the nine-month period, OAN figures regurgitated right-wing talking points about “social justice warriors” forcing sports teams to change their names from racist slurs and “erasing” Columbus from our calendars.

Meanwhile, a Reuters investigation revealed that telecom giant AT&T had played a key role in creating and funding the far-right network, with 90% of OAN's revenue reportedly coming from its AT&T contract.

Less than a month later, in November, AT&T Vice President Tom Brooks (a member of the Kanien'kehà:ka nation) renewed his company's commitment to “support Indigenous peoples” for Native American Heritage Month. That marked AT&T’s latest commitment to support Indigenous people via nonprofit fundraising, policy research and advocacy, and its Inter-Tribal Council of AT&T employees.

But the company can't have it both ways: AT&T cannot support Indigenous rights in one breath while funding OAN in the next.

As we recognize National Native American Heritage Month, here’s a look at how OAN has attacked Indigenous people so far this year -- all enabled by AT&T’s continued support for the network

Key narratives

OAN denied the history of genocidal policies used to assimilate Indigenous children

In the 1800s, governments in the U.S. and Canada partnered with churches to force Indigenous children into boarding schools under a genocidal assimilation policy with the explicit goal to “kill the Indian, save the man.” An estimated minimum of 6,000 Indigenous children died from injuries, illness, abuse, and neglect sustained in Canada’s system alone. Countless more children disappeared alongside their languages, cultures, and traditional teachings. By the time Canada shuttered the last of these schools in 1996, the residential school system left behind an ongoing, traumatic legacy extending far beyond the immediate survivors of the cultural genocide.

This traumatic legacy made headlines earlier this year after the discovery of over 1,300 bodies on the sites of former residential schools in Canada. In the U.S., the story prompted Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (a member of the Pueblo of Laguna) to order the first comprehensive federal review of American residential schools with an explicit “emphasis on cemeteries or potential burial sites.” While imperfect, this order is a significant first step in America’s own slow reckoning with its genocidal assimilation policies -- one that OAN seems intent to undermine by spreading disinformation to its viewers.

Led by Tipping Point host Kara McKinney, OAN treated the discovery of more than a thousand Indigenous children’s graves as a lie meant to target churches, drawing a tenuous connection between the discoveries and a string of church vandalism and arson across Canada.

On July 12, McKinney called the reporting on mass graves of Indigenous people at former residential schools an “odious lie” used to “excuse” the “desecration of holy grounds.”

On July 23, McKinney asserted that the media had “exaggerated” its coverage of residential schools, stating, “Just like the history of slavery in America gets overexaggerated in some cases in order to be weaponized to reorder society to this day -- they make everything about race -- the same thing is happening with these schools in Canada.”

Days later, OAN irresponsibly blamed Canadian church fires on “activists seeking revenge for Indigenous students,” comparing them to “American churches [that] were burned down or vandalized” by “George Floyd protesters” in 2020. (Though some suspects have since been arrested and charged for the Canadian fires, authorities there have yet to discuss their possible motivations.)

In a Tipping Point segment promoting her deceptive YouTube video “The Canadian Mass Grave Hoax,” alt-right troll Lauren Southern downplayed the discoveries at former residential schools, saying, “If you scratch past the surface, none of it is true.” She later claimed that “it is a far stretch to say a pit of murdered children with thousands of bodies across Canada and a gravesite that the markers have been lost -- a massive stretch, and one that ... led to mass hatred and hate crimes and terrorism, quite frankly, across Canada.”

OAN mocked Indigenous Peoples Day

OAN was outraged after President Joe Biden issued a proclamation officially recognizing October 8 as Indigenous Peoples Day. The move neither removed nor replaced Columbus Day, which is still a federally recognized holiday. Instead, it simply shifted focus onto the Indigenous community by creating what the Indigenous Peoples’ Initiative calls a “more powerful, more accurate, and more inspiring narrative about the contemporary Native experience” than the whitewashed history of colonization long perpetuated by Columbus Day.

That didn’t stop OAN from calling the move a leftist attempt to divide America. OAN hosts and guests accused Biden of “trying to erase Italian Americans,” whitewashed and defended genocide, and used derogatory terms to refer to Native Americans.

Host Stephanie Hamill discussed the “divisive” decision with Andre DiMino, executive board member of the Italian American One Voice Coalition, who portrayed the recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day as Democrats “trying to revise history and attack western culture by starting at the foundation, which was the uniting of the continents by Columbus.” DiMino whined that Indigenous people were taking Italian Americans’ holiday even though they already have “August 9, the day after Thanksgiving, and the whole month of November.”

Host Natalie Harp cited Indigenous Peoples Day as proof that “the people running our country, they do hate America at this point.” Her guest, conservative columnist Lee Smith, claimed the new holiday was part of “a campaign of demoralization” by Democrats to tell other Americans “that we will replace you with whoever we can drop into the country at any particular time” -- a direct reference to the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory.

After accusing Indigenous groups of cannibalism during her October 11 program, McKinney contradicted Columbus’ own accounts of enslaving and brutalizing Indigenous people, asserting that he “actually treated native peoples with great respect for his time" and “actively punished his own crew members when they abused and hurt the native peoples.”

After repeatedly referring to Native Americans as “savages,” host Dan Ball asked, “What if Christopher Columbus had not found and tried to colonize this land? What if European settlers ... did not come to America and civilize the Native Americans? … If this land was left to tribes that were warring for the last 500 years, what would this land look like?” These types of rhetorical questions are predicated on racist myths about Indigenous people that continue to perpetuate systemic health, economic, political, and social inequalities.

OAN attacked Indigenous activism and spread racist misconceptions about Native Americans

OAN regularly derided historic figures and activism and ensuing media coverage, paying particular attention to the Washington Football Team’s decision in July 2020 to stop using its previous racist moniker after decades of Indigenous activism against harmful and racist naming practices in sports. Hosts and guests referred to the team by the defunct name well into 2021.

OAN segments consistently criticized and undermined the historic nomination of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, claiming the media focused too much on “the fact she’s the first Native American named to a Cabinet position” instead of her supposedly “radical environmentalist agenda” to fight "so-called climate change.”

In an August 5 segment that repeatedly referred to the Washington Football Team by its racist former name, two OAN news hosts mocked Indigenous concerns and suggested that the Pittsburgh Pirates would be the next sports team to cede to “the left” and change its moniker “because a group of pirates are very upset about that.”

On the July 23 edition of The Real Story, American Principles Project President Terry Schilling told Indigenous people to “stop taking everything so personally” as “it’s a total honor to name your team after the Indians, or [the Washington Football Team’s former name], or the Cherokees, or the Chiefs or whatever” because they were “very tough adversaries” who “we had to fight … in America for 400 years.”

Over a graphic stating “No Whites Allowed,” Ball suggested applying to a reparations fund meant for Black and Indigenous Californians “because I have Native American on my dad’s side, with probably more than Pocahontas,” referring to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), “but if I describe myself as an Indigenous person then I could apply to this.” His guest, former Trump adviser Harmeet Dhillon, said that this reparations policy is an example of “the ultimate racial privilege, really.” (Under current Federal enrollment guidelines, tribes do not consider a vague Indigenous ancestor or DNA test as valid proof of Native ancestry. Furthermore, using tenuous claims of Indigenous identity to avoid accountability for racist policies and beliefs is racist.)

On September 29, Tipping Point guest Christopher Check, president of Catholic Answers, downplayed Franciscan monk Junipero Serra’s brutal treatment toward Native American people, calling the colonizer a “saintly man that wanted nothing more than the best thing for natives of California, that eternal salvation." As Bad Indians author Deborah Miranda (Ohlone Costanoan Esselen nation) told KQED, “Serra did not just bring us Christianity. He imposed it, giving us no choice in the matter. He did incalculable damage to a whole culture.”

Sumantra Maitra, a senior contributor to The Federalist, used the October 11 edition of McKinney’s show to call the landback movement “a prelude to violence” and said that “the logical endpoint to that rhetoric is taking that land back, and taking that land back would've mean a reconquest,” explicitly comparing it to the Balkan genocides of the 1990s. Maitra’s comments grossly mischaracterize the landback movement, which is the latest social media-focused iteration of a broad political movement calling for settler governments to return land stewardship to Indigenous peoples.

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AT&T announces $43 billion deal to merge WarnerMedia with Discovery

PUBLISHED MON, MAY 17 20217:09 AM EDTUPDATED MON, cle via Email

KEY POINTS

Under the agreement, AT&T said it would receive an aggregate amount of $43 billion in a combination of cash, debt and WarnerMedia’s retention of certain debt.

Discovery shareholders would own 29% of the new company.

Discovery CEO: We can get to 400M direct-to-consumer homes

Telecom giant AT&T announced Monday a deal to combine its content unit WarnerMedia with Discovery, paving the way for one of Hollywood’s biggest studios to compete with media giants Netflix and Disney.

Under the agreement, AT&T will unwind its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, which closed just under three years ago and form a new media company with Discovery. The deal would create a new business, separate from AT&T, that could be valued at as much as $150 billion, including debt, according to The Financial Times.

AT&T said it would receive an aggregate amount of $43 billion in a combination of cash, debt and WarnerMedia’s retention of certain debt. AT&T shareholders would receive stock representing 71% of the new company, while Discovery shareholders would own 29%, it added.

If approved by regulators, the deal effectively reverses AT&T’s years-long plan to combine content and distribution in a vertically integrated company. The companies said the deal is expected to close in the middle of 2022.

Shares of Discovery were up as much as 9% Monday morning before falling 5% at the end of regular trading. AT&T’s stock price fell 2%.

CNBC

AT&T said Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav will lead the new company, which will have a new name announced in coming days. The board would consist of 13 members, seven initially appointed by AT&T including the chair, and Discovery would appoint six members, including Zaslav.

“It is super exciting to combine such historic brands, world class journalism and iconic franchises under one roof and unlock so much value and opportunity,” Zaslav said, adding that AT&T and Discovery’s assets “are better and more valuable together.”

The new firm’s singular mission, Zaslav said, is “to focus on telling the most amazing stories and have a ton of fun doing it.”

However, the future of WarnerMedia’s current CEO, Jason Kilar, is uncertain. On a press call Monday morning following the announcement, Stankey said Kilar still holds his title, but it will be up to Zaslav to decide if Kilar still has a job with the new company.

AT&T owns CNN, HBO and Warner Bros. after it acquired Time Warner, since renamed to WarnerMedia. Discovery’s channels include Animal Planet, TLC and the Discovery Channel.

Zaslav said on the press call Monday that he believes the combined company will be able to differentiate itself from top streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix by offering a combination of news and sports on top of its entertainment properties like “Game of Thrones” and Harry Potter.

Zaslav also expressed confidence in CNN, which some had speculated would be spun off from WarnerMedia. Zaslav said Monday his new company plans to keep CNN with the intention “to take everything we have in news, combine it with CNN and be a world leader in news.”

Stankey and Zaslav said the two companies already spend a combined $20 billion per year on content, putting them in the same realm as Netflix, which currently spends about $17 billion on content per year. In an interview Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” Zaslav said he has a goal for his new company to reach up to 400 million streaming subscribers across the world, up from the 100 million subscribers the two separate companies have today.

Zaslav also said on “Squawk on the Street” that the deal was possible now after Stankey collected many of WarnerMedia’s various media properties under a single brand instead of selling its content to third parties like it had done before the AT&T acquisition.

“John had the vision to bring all that content together,” Zaslav said.

CNBC

Zaslav did not provide concrete details for what the new combined company’s streaming offering will look like, but did say there will be a lot of flexibility. HBO Max is preparing to launch a cheaper, ad-supported version of its service in coming weeks. And Discovery+, which launched early this year, offers an ad-supported version as well.

“We’re going to do it differently,” Zaslav said. “We will have the flexibility here in the U.S. and around the world to determine how we create the ecosystem around this extraordinary IP ... we’ll see over the next few years as we learn about what consumers want and how they want it.”

HBO and HBO Max reportedly have around 64 million subscribers worldwide. Discovery said last month it had reached 15 million paying subscribers.

By contrast, Netflix has around 208 million global subscribers, while Disney+ recently surpassed 100 million less than 1½ years after the streaming service launched.

The announcement came after reports over the weekend that the companies were in advanced talks to complete the merger.

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AT&T has yet to answer for its support of OAN — and customers have had it

Image via Shutterstock.

Daily Kos October 24, 2021

NAACP President Derrick Johnson is set to meet with AT&T leadership at the company's Washington, D.C. headquarters today to discuss AT&T's relationship with One America News (OAN). Johnson condemned AT&T after a Reuters investigation published earlier this month found that a lucrative contract with AT&T-owned platforms was responsible for 90% of OAN parent company Herring Networks, Inc.'s funding, and that AT&T even had a hand in creating OAN when it launched in 2013.

"We are outraged to learn that AT&T has been funneling tens of millions of dollars into OAN since the network's inception," Johnson said. "AT&T has as a result caused irreparable damage to our democracy."

OAN head Robert Herring Sr. revealed in a 2019 deposition obtained by Reuters that AT&T executives were the ones who approached him about founding OAN. "They [AT&T] told us they wanted a conservative network," Herring said. "They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one."

Herring hasn't been shy about the editorial freedom and support AT&T has given his far-right network since then. During an interview on OAN last week, Herring showered AT&T with praise and even called on viewers to thank the company.

A full video of the interview also shows Herring outright lying about the controversy surrounding the Reuters report. When pressed by correspondent Pearson Sharp, Herring said that "all of our funding comes from the Herring Networks." Technically true, but much of the funding Herring Networks received appears to come from that AT&T contract.

OAN began airing on U-Verse in 2014. It only started appearing on DirecTV in 2017 after parent company Herring Networks settled a case with AT&T over AT&T's acquisition of DirecTV in 2015. Herring Networks claimed that AT&T had gone back on an oral agreement that would allow OAN to be broadcast on DirecTV once the acquisition went through.

AT&T cited the settlement as the only reason DirecTV even broadcasts OAN. "When we acquired DIRECTV, Herring pressured us for months to carry OAN. We rejected their offer and in response, Herring Networks sued us, claiming we deliberately intended to injure Herring," the company said in a statement. "Only as part of the settlement of that lawsuit did DIRECTV consent to a commercial carriage agreement with OAN four years ago."

OAN is available on other providers, including Verizon FiOS, GCI, and CenturyLink Prism. Those companies appear to be facing minimal backlash compared with AT&T. One source told media consultant Timothy Burke that 20% of the DirecTV cancellations they'd received were because of AT&T's support for OAN.

AT&T really has been hit in the pocketbook lately. The company's stocks have been on a steep downturn since the Reuters report was published Oct. 6, though investors have been wary to hold onto it since the company announced a merger with Discovery Inc. in May. Last week, MarketWatch reported that AT&T was headed for an 11-year low. AT&T's Q3 earnings call today didn't exactly give it the boost the company was expecting, either. The stock rose slightly then continued tumbling and is currently .85% lower than it was when markets closed yesterday.

Last month, CEO John Stankey said the company would focus on a "multi-year effort" to rehabilitate its image. Sticking with OAN doesn't exactly help with that. It remains to be seen what AT&T will do about Herring Networks following the meeting with Johnson. For now, many customers are more than happy to pull the plug on DirecTV and other AT&T-owned ventures instead of waiting for an answer to come.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/right-wing-media-subverting-american-democracy-continued-election-lies

Right-wing media is subverting American democracy with continued election lies

09/16/21

alarming new poll finds that among Americans who trust Fox News or other far-right media sources such as One America News, 76% falsely believe the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump — a number far out of kilter from the American mainstream.

Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent reported on the poll from the Public Religion Research Institute, which found that only 29% of Americans believe that the election was stolen, compared to 69% who correctly answered that it was not. Furthermore, 56% of respondents said Trump deserved “a lot” of the blame for the January 6 insurrection, when a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.

Sargent further asked the pollster to break out the numbers according to media consumption habits. In addition to the finding that 76% of right-wing media consumers believed the election was stolen, only 12% of those respondents gave Trump a lot of the blame for the January 6 riot.

“When future historians seek to explain the United States’ perilous slide toward authoritarianism in the 21st century, they will grapple with the role played in all these events by Fox News and the right-wing media,” Sargent wrote. “Simply put, those actors are helping Donald Trump and his movement threaten democracy, in a way that will likely continue getting worse.”

As Media Matters has previously documented, right-wing media outlets played a key role in Trump’s efforts to subvert the election results, frequently telling their viewers that Trump had won the election or pushing other lies in an effort to discredit Biden’s clear victory. And in the months after the insurrection, these same right-wing outlets worked to rewrite the history of that event and cover up the criminal acts that took place.

More recently, right-wing media outlets have continued to peddle lies about the election.

Fox News is now facing multibillion-dollar lawsuits against the network from two prominent voting machine companies for the network’s role in helping to spread Trump’s claims that they had artificially changed votes. Meanwhile, the network has legitimized the election lies in subtler ways, with hosts either refusing to disavow them or trying to paper over what the network had done.

• Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo referred to the January 6 riot as a “peaceful protest.” (Months earlier, Bartiromo had also given Trump a platform to continue to lie about the election.)
• Fox News host Pete Hegseth refused to answer a guest asking him to say that Trump had lost the election, saying: “I’m not — don't really feel any obligation to answer anything for you.”
• In an interview with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), Fox News anchor Bret Baier attempted to whitewash the network’s role — and his own — in having helped to spread Trump’s election lies in late 2020.
• Baier also helped to cover up the motives of a man who caused a bomb scare in Washington, D.C., and spouted right-wing conspiracy theories including about the election. Baier told viewers that the suspect’s “motive remains unknown” — even after the suspect had livestreamed his false claims and social media videos showed the suspect having taken part in a “Stop the Steal” march.
• When Trump appeared for a phone interview in August, the network initially edited out his election lies from the version that was posted online. Then, following condemnation from Trump’s spokesperson, the network posted a second version with the lie put back in.

One of the worst offenders has been the far-right channel One America News. In addition to the role it played in propagandizing for Trump’s election lies in late 2020, on January 6 itself the network’s White House correspondent argued that the “protesters” shutting down Congress provided justification for then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop the count of the Electoral College votes.

In the weeks and months that followed that attack, the network’s hosts have argued that it’s “possible” Biden “wasn't actually elected by the people,” continued to push claims that computer systems changed votes, claimed that the country does not have a legitimate executive branch, and said that “there were a lot of dead people that voted in the last election.”

And just in recent months:

• The network aired over 30 hours of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “cyber symposium,” which sought to offer proof that the election was stolen.
• The network later hosted Lindell for an interview in which he promised a second symposium and speculated that Trump could be reinstated into office “this fall — I hope in September.”
• Even after being sued by a prominent election systems company, the network has continued to promote lies that Trump really won the election.
• OAN host Natalie Harp has rbegun promoting right-wing claims of “unknown” votes that were lost and never counted, even though she has also previously claimed there were tens of thousands of extra votes in Arizona.
• The network’s hosts and commentators have openly fundraised for the Arizona Senate’s “forensic audit” of the ballots in the state’s largest county, aiming to spread these audits throughout the country.
• OAN commentator Pearson Sharp has speculated that the audits would lead to the mass executions of election officials.

Newsmax also told its viewers to be “suspicious” about the election results and spread claims about voting machines changing the results. (The network is now also being sued.) The network also promoted various methods of overturning the Electoral College results, or even sending the military into the states, and repeatedly pushed the idea that Trump might still prevail. And on January 6, the network’s hosts also suggested that “leftist groups” and philanthropist George Soros were really behind the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In recent months:

• The channel ran ads for Lindell’s “cyber symposium” over 170 times in a single week and, in a further publicity stunt, sent a correspondent to picket Fox News for having refused to run the ad.
• Newsmax host Greg Kelly has said: “I still have concerns about the election of 2020, and it's okay to have concerns, all right?” Kelly also praised Lindell for being “committed to finding out what really happened in the 2020 election.” (What really happened: Joe Biden won.)
• Just this week, Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield claimed that “President Trump would still be in office” were it not for a “mail-in ballots scheme” by Democrats.
• ----

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In February 2021, a federal judge awarded $250,000 to MSNBC in an anti-SLAPP counter suit to OANN's $10 million lawsuit claiming that they had been defamed by Rachel Maddow. The judgement ruled that OANN's initial suit was frivolous and required OANN to pay all legal fees incurred by MSNBC.[171]

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Pearson Sharp

Sharp doesn’t have the same hoax spreading bonafides as some of his colleagues but has at least made himself, in propaganda parlance, a “useful idiot,” which counts for something.

In a May 2019 OAN story, Sharp cited a report from the Foundation for the Study of Democracy to claim that the White Helmets, an internationally lauded volunteer search and rescue team in Syria, had been faking chemical attacks in the country. What Sharp was either ignorant of or did not share, is that the Foundation for the Study of Democracy is a Russian government front.

Like his co-workers, he’s also attacked Soros by reporting that protests against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by activists from groups that he’s funded “aren’t what they seem to be.”

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ver the last several weeks, President Trump has repeatedly promoted the conspiracy-mongering One American News Network on his Twitter feed and by regularly calling on its correspondent at White House news events. On Tuesday morning, he did so again by tweeting an unsubstantiated conspiracy that has been pushed by the network, citing its reporting to claim that a 75-year-old man who was knocked over and bloodied by Buffalo police while taking part in a protest after the death of George Floyd may have been “an ANTIFA provocateur” working to disrupt police communications.

Based on what little data is available, the channel could use all the White House support it can get. According to CNN, OAN doesn’t subscribe to industry-standard Nielsen Media Research, but last spring, it went ahead and measured the channel anyway in the country’s largest metropolitan areas. It averaged just 14,000 viewers from April 1, 2019, to June 11, 2019. In that time, Fox News averaged 631,000 viewers; CNN and MSNBC also had averages in the hundreds of thousands. While the network’s owner has said it is available in 35 million American homes, that number represents less than a third of households with television.

Despite its small viewership, Trump has helped OAN gain outsize reach and reputation by endorsing its outrageous reporting and by his multiple assertions that he might prefer the network to Fox News. The channel’s willingness to do stories without a factual basis seems to know no bounds, as long as they make the left look bad and the right, particularly Trumpism, look great. The channel amplifies hoaxes that, before, were usually sitting on the margins of the internet. For example, theories about the global ambitions of liberal megadonor George Soros, Bill Gates, and other wealthy people that the channel has run haven’t appeared anywhere else but on message boards and fringe-right Twitter and Instagram accounts. It’s unclear if the channel has a fact-checking process. If it does, it appears to have no problem citing such sources.

OAN’s willingness to amplify the false and absurd probably comes from its personnel. It’s established a team of on-air personalities who, without the network’s platform, would be hard pressed to do much beyond being tinfoil hat-wearing, internet shit posters. Here’s a look at some of the wildest members of their organization:

THE CREAM OF THE CRAP

Kristian Rouz

Trump’s Tuesday morning tweet about Martin Gugino, the elderly activist manhandled by Buffalo police, referenced a segment reported by Rouz where he posits the incident of “so-called police brutality” may have been a “false flag provocation.”

Rouz went viral last month in the midst of the coronavirus crisis after Media Matters’ Matt Gertz happened to see a segment he created claiming “mounting evidence of a globalist conspiracy” by the Clintons, Soros, Bill Gates, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the Chinese government, citing a comically high amount of unnamed “reports.” (To be 100 percent clear, no reports indicate this.)

In 2017, also on an entirely false OAN segment, Rouz made up a claim about how Clinton was secretly funding antifa through her political action committee. In another, he repeated the debunked claim that Soros collaborated with Nazis during World War II, when he would have been in his early teens. He also claimed on-air that Soros was funding the Central American migrant caravan that captured the attention of conspiracy theorists in the fall of 2018.

Rouz didn’t just come out of nowhere with viral megahits. He’s been practicing in a well known conspiratorial training ground: Russian propaganda state media. As of 2019, The Daily Beast pointed out that Rouz has been working simultaneously for both OAN and for the Russian state media outlet, Sputnik.

Jack Posobiec

Posobiec may be the channel’s flagship disinformer. The OAN host is notorious for being one of the most prominent pushers of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory; he once conducted a livestream “investigation” of the restaurant where the hoax pedophile ring was said to be occurring, during which he waltzed into a child’s birthday party being held in a back room. Since then, he acts as though he’s been locked in a John Wooden-esque competition with himself to outdo his greatest disinformation achievement.

Since Pizzagate, instead of amplifying other already existing conspiracies, Posobiec has usually been focused on his own, artisanally crafted solo concoctions. He once stopped a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar mid-production in New York because he was offended the centuries-old work had been staged with elements that seemed to reference Trump. I once witnessed him dash around the lawn of the Capitol telling Democratic Senators that supporting net neutrality would mean that they were supporting Satanic porn.

Some of his most repugnant hits include trying to plant “Rape Melania” signs at an anti-Trump rally, falsely tweeting that Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch had called for “blood in the streets,” a made-up claim that Star Wars’ Rogue One was being rewritten to include scenes calling Trump racist, and, after Republican congressman Steve Scalise was shot at baseball practice, that Bernie Sanders had told his followers to “take down” Trump. None of rose to Pizzagate levels of fame, but not for lack effort on Posobiec’s part. He has also tweeted in support of a white nationalist conspiracy which holds that immigration and other trends are part of a secret plot to commit white genocide.

Chanel Rion

Rion, who is the channel’s White House reporter, may be supplanting Posobiec as OAN’s most well-known staff member due to Trump’s recent habit of calling on her during new conferences, where she can be relied upon to ask questions whose thrust is either helpful to the president or damaging to his opponents. Another unhinged conspiracy theorist, she has peddled theories including Pizzagate, that the Clinton’s were responsible for Seth Rich’s murder, anti-semitic tropes about liberal financier George Soros, and conspiracies about Joe Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.

During the coronavirus, CNN reports that Rion jeopardized the health of other journalists by flouting White House Press Briefing social distancing guidelines. After being kicked out of briefings for this, she tried, unsuccessfully, to bring her own chair into the briefing room.

Rion’s bio boasts that before she came to OAN, she worked as a volunteer on Trump’s 2016 campaign and spent time “producing illustrations for President Trump and family.”

Robert Herring Sr.

Robert Herring Sr. founded OAN in 2013 with money he made in the circuit board industry. While Herring has not personally used OAN airtime to undertake overt and aggressive conspiracy-mongering, he owns a network that has hired a bunch of people that do. On Twitter, Herring boosts his own suspect theories (he’s been really into hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure, which doctors are not yet confident in). According to the Washington Post, Herring banned polls that didn’t show Trump in first place during his last election.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Pearson Sharp

Sharp doesn’t have the same hoax spreading bonafides as some of his colleagues but has at least made himself, in propaganda parlance, a “useful idiot,” which counts for something.

In a May 2019 OAN story, Sharp cited a report from the Foundation for the Study of Democracy to claim that the White Helmets, an internationally lauded volunteer search and rescue team in Syria, had been faking chemical attacks in the country. What Sharp was either ignorant of or did not share, is that the Foundation for the Study of Democracy is a Russian government front.

Like his co-workers, he’s also attacked Soros by reporting that protests against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by activists from groups that he’s funded “aren’t what they seem to be.”

Emerald Robinson

Emerald Robinson no longer works at OAN. She’s now at Newsmax, but in her time at the San Diego-based television outlet, she became one of the channel’s few anchors to be praised by the white nationalist website, VDare.

It’s unclear exactly what about Robinson resonated with the outlet, but a now-deleted Islamaphobic tweet in which she called Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) an “al-Qaeda supporting Somali Gangster” and “Islamist terrorist supporter” offers a sense.

Jerome Corsi

High-profile conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi doesn’t work at OAN, but he’s too prominent not to mention. Corsi, who was a subject of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, has gone on the channel to erroneously talk about how “Soros & Bidens Are Globalist Puppet Masters Behind Ukraine.”

Off the network, Corsi has spread hoaxes about the Clinton’s killing of DNC staffer Seth Rich, even though he knew it wasn’t true. The hoax has subjected Rich’s already grieving family to tremendous agony and pain.

=

Oliver discussed OAN during a segment on the Sunday, October 10 broadcast of his HBO series "Last Week Tonight," humorously taking a jab at AT&T for playing a role in the launch of OAN back in 2013.

Oliver told viewers, "You may remember that we covered (OAN) last year. It's a far-right channel that peddles COVID misinformation and conspiracy theories. Well, this week, we learned some pretty unsettling news."

After showing a clip of CNN's Jake Tapper reporting on the AT&T/OAN connection, Oliver humorously added, "Yup, turns out AT&T has been up to some shit. And it is worth noting: AT&T is still technically our business daddy, making OAN our business stepsibling — and not in a hot way."

Oliver, drawing on reporting from Reuters, added "OAN founder and Chief Executive Robert Herring, Sr. has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives. 'They told us they wanted a conservative network,' Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters…. With that help, OAN has grown into the toxic network that it is today — one that's happy to give a platform to batshit election fraud theories from America's most out-of-breath pillow fetishist (Mike Lindell)."

Oliver showed a clip of OAN's Pearson Sharp calling for mass executions of Democrats and election workers he believes stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

Maintaining his humorous but edgy tone, the "Last Week Tonight" host said, "Look, AT&T, I know our relationship is a little awkward…. Let me just say this: You're a terrible company. You do bad things, and you make the world worse.

4

…and then they teamed up with an OAN reporter?

Giuliani told attorneys that the Trump legal team effectively deputized a reporter for OAN, the pro-Trump news network, to work for the Big Lie.

That, Giuliani said, involved Christina Bobb working for Trump’s “personal lawyers,” referring to her as “part of the legal team.” In that capacity, Giuliani claimed, she focused on searching for anything that would support the myth that the election had been fraudulent in the key states of Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia.

“My staff said she was terrific, she was very trustworthy and if we could work out an agreement with One America News, it would be very helpful,” Giuliani said. “She was a very good investigator.”

Bobb has used her TV perch at OAN to both promote the Big Lie and fundraise for elements of it. As the reality of Trump’s loss became clearer after the 2020 election, Bobb became increasingly detached from reality in her rhetoric.

Giuliani claimed that over that time period, she agreed to give the Trump legal team veto power over stories.

“The rules that we made with [OAN editor] Charles [Herring] were that he would defer to us to whatever our needs were, that he couldn’t give it to us permanently but he could loosen up her assignments for the next couple of months, therefore she wouldn’t be working all that much for OAN,” Giuliani said.

Herring, in his deposition, denied that he was aware of the arrangement.

Giuliani added that Bobb agreed that “if she did develop a discrete, good story, she would have to run it past us so it didn’t violate any of our rules or whatever.”

“And I was pretty comfortable they would live by it because they had before,” Giuliani remarked.

OAN has produced a string of documentaries that take ideas floating in the Trumpworld ether and give them form.

5

https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/att-wanted-another-fox-news-and-oan-what-it-got

On October 6, Reuters published the first part of a special report revealing AT&T’s central role in the creation and continued survival of One America News Network.

According to court records reviewed by Reuters, OAN founder Robert Herring Sr. testified that AT&T “told us they wanted a conservative network. … When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.” Records also indicate that according to an OAN accountant, “ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms.” According to an AT&T filing that cites Herring’s numbers, AT&T has paid OAN “about $57 million” in fees, though an AT&T spokesperson claimed this number is inaccurate.

OAN and all of its lies would not exist, and could not survive, without AT&T’s blessing.

Whatever the figure AT&T has paid to help keep OAN alive, the network has been using the airwaves to push toxic -- and often dangerous -- misinformation.

That includes a deadly TV campaign against COVID-19 vaccines, hateful anti-LGBTQ content, and a network-wide assault on elections meant to hype bogus claims of fraud and overturn the 2020 results. The election attacks include a reporter’s nonprofit seeking to fund fraudulent election “audits” around the country, a demented obsession with the MyPillow CEO and his money, and a correspondent’s call for mass executions of election officials. And that’s to say nothing of the host who used a racial slur on air or another host’s apparent wish to shoot unhoused people.

We now know that AT&T didn’t just choose this; it asked for this. Herring delivered, and we are all worse off for it.

Outside of AT&T, OAN is actively trying to expand its reach by encouraging its audience to pressure both Comcast and Charter Spectrum to carry the network. Its website features a prominent call for readers to call both providers and tell them that “you want OAN added to your channel lineup.”

From the first of two parts of the Reuters special report:

OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives.

“They told us they wanted a conservative network,” Herring said during a 2019 deposition seen by Reuters. “They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other [leftwing] side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.”

Since then, AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant.

Herring has testified he was offered $250 million for OAN in 2019. Without the DirecTV deal, the accountant said under oath, the network’s value “would be zero.”

…

In a pivotal moment for the company, the Herrings say in court filings, depositions and sworn statements, unidentified AT&T executives told them there was an audience for another conservative news network. Herring seized the opportunity.

In his 2019 deposition in the labor suit unrelated to AT&T, the elder Herring said he created OAN for two reasons.

“To make money, number one,” Robert Herring said. “But number two, is that AT&T told us … they wanted a conservative network.”

The lawyer questioning Herring, Rodney Diggs, followed up.

“So,” the lawyer said, “AT&T kind of dictated the kind of network that they wanted. Because there was an opportunity, you jumped at it?”

“Yes, sir,” Herring replied.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/08/rachel-maddow/

oan pays $250k fails defam

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow scored another court victory in a libel suit by One America News' parent company Herring Networks, after an appeals court upheld a previous ruling in the case.

The right-wing OAN and its owner sued Maddow after she commented on a Daily Beast report on the explicitly pro-Donald Trump network's employment of a Kremlin-paid journalist, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's ruling that her statements were not actionable, reported The Hollywood Reporter.

"We literally learned today that that outlet the President is promoting shares staff with the Kremlin," Maddow said in July 2019. "I mean, what?… 'In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda. Their on-air U.S. politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government."

The libel suit was dismissed in May 2020 when a district court judge found that a reasonable viewer would not interpret Maddow's comment to mean that OAN was paid Russian propaganda, but instead her own hyperbolic opinion on the matter.

"In comparison to the undisputed facts that Maddow reports, the contested statement was particularly emphatic and unfounded: Maddow went from stating that OAN employs a Sputnik employee to stating that OAN reports Russian propaganda," wrote Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. "A reasonable person would understand Maddow's contested statement as an 'obvious exaggeration,' that is, as Maddow explains, 'sandwiched between precise factual recitations' of The Daily Beast article."

The judge awarded OAN to pay $250,000 in legal fees to Maddow and MSNBC.

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an 621 mirroring? justifies violence by ppl in the name of/lieu of gov't? 1/6 called cops traitors and attacked/killed them.

Believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory are enthusiastically circulating a video of a contributor at the Trump-loving One America News calling for the mass execution of the former president's enemies.

Via The Daily Beast's Will Sommer, an OAN contributor this week went off on a rant in which he falsely claimed that "voter fraud" cost former President Donald Trump the 2020 election, and said it was time to think about how to deal with the purported perpetrators.

"Exactly how many people were involved in these efforts to undermine the election?" he asked. "Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? How many people does it take to carry out a coup against the presidency?"

He then pivoted to the consequences that the purported coup plotters will face once their treachery is exposed.

"In the past, America had a very good solution for dealing with such traitors: Execution," he said.

According to Sommer, the clip has gone viral in QAnon chat rooms.

"I came across the clip because QAnon people are see it as proof that the mass executions are right around the corner," Sommer explains. "Lots of glee in the Q chat rooms, demands for how exactly their imagined executions will be carried out and complaints they had to wait too long."

621 an half a dozen states reps visit?!

A fundraising group, under the direction of a One America News Network (OAN) host, is now footing the bill to cover travel expenses for out-of-state Republican legislators to tour the botched election audit currently underway in Maricopa County, Ariz.

According to Talking Points Memo, Voices and Votes is the group led by Christina Bobb, a former Trump administration official who currently works as a host for the One America News Network (OAN). Back in April, Bobb gradually became more vocal about the group's fundraising efforts noting that it had surpassed the $150,000 milestone.

At the time, pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood confirmed to the publication that his own group Fight Back had also contributed $50,000 to Voices and Votes. His admission came as he admitted that he had personally spent time with Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, the top contractor conducting the audit. At that time, Wood claimed Logan told him he was "working on the investigation into election fraud."

At one point, she also incorporated an on-air campaign to promote fundraising efforts for the group.

"Voice and Votes is an organization that I started, and I'm working to help other state senators get a close-up view of the Arizona audit," Bobb said. "If you'd like to help fund other state senators to get an up-close and personal view of the Arizona audit, you can donate at VoicesandVotes.org."

Now, those funds are being utilized to help Republican lawmakers travel to the state so they can get a firsthand experience of how the audit is being conducted which may influence future audits in similar fashion in other states.

While many Republican legislators have expressed interest in touring the audit, there are a number of reasons why there are concerns about this. The audit may not be the best reference to model after as it is being conducted by an inexperienced firm. It has also been a subject of intense scrutiny over the last several weeks.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/oan-host-youll-probably-end-jail-if-you-shoot-homeless-person-even-though

direct tv end deal? mma 621  https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/one-america-news-racist-falsehoods-undermine-directvs-appeals-racial

a corp that hired pvt security, sold rights to another corp oann, which is being sued for libel but raising dark $ for audit?? ~ trans b/c proproetary, NDA's

a corp that hired pvt security, sold rights to another corp oann, which is being sued for libel but raising dark $ for audit?? ~ trans b/c proproetary, NDA's

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/arizona-audit-oan/

ah

no twt

With devotees of former Present Donald Trump currently conducting a blatantly partisan audit of the 2020 election results in Maricopa County, Arizona, One America News Network has been offering glowing coverage of that event. Journalist Sarah Mimms, in an article published by BuzzFeed News on May 18, examines the connection between OAN employees and the audit — which was ordered by Republicans in the Arizona State Senate and is being conducted by the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas, whose founder Doug Logan is a far-right Trump supporters who pushed the former president's false claims of voter fraud in 2020.

"Two reporters at One America News, a far-right TV station, are running a dark money organization that they say is helping fund a counter-reality 'audit' that former President Donald Trump and his supporters believe will overturn Arizona's 2020 election results in his favor," Mimms explains. "What's more, one of those reporters, Christina Bobb, is the network's most visible correspondent covering the very 'audit' that she is helping scare up money for on OAN's airwaves, while she and the network enjoy unique access to the process where private contractors and volunteers are searching for fraud and have examined ballots for nonexistent watermarks and 'bamboo fibers.' OAN has a deal as the exclusive livestream partner for the audit."

Bobb hosts a program on OAN called "Weekly Briefing," and Mimms points out that on April 9, she tweeted that she had founded a group devoted to promoting the audit: Voices and Votes. According to Bobb, the group raised $150,000 that day.

"According to its website," Mimms observes, "Voices and Votes is run by Bobb as the CEO and president, as well as OAN's White House correspondent Chanel Rion, who is listed as the chief marketing officer, and Courtland Sykes, Rion's fiancé, who is listed as the group's chief operations officer."[twt dANGEROUSLY UNDERFUNDED"

although the Maricopa County audit is being slammed as a joke by Trump's critics on both the left and the right, legitimate audits or recounts of the election results in Arizona have been conducted — and they showed that now-President Joe Biden won Arizona fair and square. Biden's Arizona victory was reported by the decision desk at Fox News on Election Night 2020 and was later certified by conservative Republican Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.

Mimms explains why the current Maricopa County audit is a "farce," noting, "It's important to pause here and note that the audit itself is not really an audit at all. What happened is the Arizona Senate, which is controlled by 16 Republicans to 14 Democrats, sent a subpoena to Maricopa County — which was upheld by a judge, forcing the county to hand over 2.1 million ballots, as well as vote tabulators and a bunch of election data. The 'audit,' which is being run by outside contractors hired by the Senate, will have no force or effect on the 2020 election results; Joe Biden is president, and Arizona already did an audit of Maricopa County in the presidential race and didn't find a single ballot discrepancy. The county itself, which is not involved in the current Senate audit either, also hired two independent firms to review its elections equipment in February, which came back clean as well."

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ref no pix twt

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahmimms/arizona-election-results-oan-reporters-fundraising

two reporters at One America News, a far-right TV station, are running a dark money organization that they say is helping fund a counter-reality “audit” that former president Donald Trump and his supporters believe will overturn Arizona’s 2020 election results in his favor.

What’s more, one of those reporters, Christina Bobb, is the network’s most visible correspondent covering the very “audit” that she is helping scare up money for on OAN’s airwaves, while she and the network enjoy unique access to the process where private contractors and volunteers are searching for fraud and have examined ballots for nonexistent watermarks and “bamboo fibers.” OAN has a deal as the exclusive livestream partner for the audit.

Christina Bobb hosting her show Weekly Briefing on OAN pix]

Bobb has not made a secret of her work to keep that audit going. On April 9, she tweeted that she’d founded a group called Voices and Votes to help the Republican-led Arizona Senate complete its audit of the vote in Maricopa County. The group reached its $150,000 fundraising goal that same day, according to Bobb, and she’s continued soliciting money for the audit since, both on Twitter and on air.

According to its website, Voices and Votes is run by Bobb as the CEO and president, as well as OAN’s White House correspondent Chanel Rion, who is listed as the chief marketing officer, and Courtland Sykes, Rion’s fiancé, who is listed as the group’s chief operations officer. The group’s website also says that Voices and Votes is registered as a 501(c)(4) organization, meaning its donors will never be made public.

That also means that the group will never have to give an accounting of how much money it has raised or where that money actually went. Bobb did not respond when BuzzFeed News asked how much Voices and Votes has brought in, but insisted that all of the money raised “has gone to the auditors.” Cyber Ninjas, the firm leading the audit, and its CEO did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether it had received money from Voices and Votes.

twt]

it’s important to pause here and note that the audit itself is not really an audit at all. What happened is the Arizona Senate, which is controlled by 16 Republicans (to 14 Democrats) sent a subpoena to Maricopa County, which was upheld by a judge, forcing the county to hand over 2.1 million ballots, as well as vote tabulators and a bunch of election data. The “audit,” which is being run by outside contractors hired by the Senate, will have no force or effect on the 2020 election results; Joe Biden is president, and Arizona already did an audit of Maricopa County in the presidential race and didn’t find a single ballot discrepancy. The county itself, which is not involved in the current Senate audit either, also hired two independent firms to review its elections equipment in February, which came back clean as well.

On Monday, Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors, which is majority Republican, wrote a scathing letter to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, calling the audit a threat to democracy and telling her to end it. “The Arizona Senate is not acting in good faith, has no intention of learning anything about the November 2020 General Election, but is only interested in feeding the various festering conspiracy theories that fuel the fundraising schemes of those pulling your strings. ... The result is that the Arizona Senate is held up to ridicule in every corner of the globe and our democracy is imperiled,” the board wrote.

But, as Bobb told her OAN audience a few weeks ago, the new Senate audit will “unravel the Democrats' schemes from 2020” and Trump “will determine our next House and Senate” — whatever that means. In the same segment, she backtracked slightly, saying that “maybe” the audit would show there was no fraud. “Maybe,” she said, laughing, “Biden legitimately won Arizona.”

Needless to say, no legitimate newsroom would allow its reporters to fundraise for an actual news event they’re covering. Nonetheless, Bobb has continued soliciting donations for Voices and Votes, actively fundraising to keep the story she is covering going. Bobb tweeted as recently as April 28 that the audit isn’t “fully funded yet” and asked followers to “please help get this audit across the finish line!” That weekend she dedicated segments of her Weekly Briefing show to her reporting from the audit and an interview with the Arizona Republican Party chair.

[twt]

after reaching her $150,000 goal, Bobb announced the group’s “second pledge,” this time without naming a monetary goal, tweeting, “Let’s get this audit funded!” with a donation link.

Just a week later, the Arizona Republican Party tweeted that OAN would be the exclusive livestreamer of the audit. The network now runs nine cameras 24/7 showing contractors examining the 2.1 million ballots. And Bobb herself has been there reporting on it for OAN the whole time, posting photos of herself alongside some of the architects of the audit and thanking those “true Patriots” for making it happen.

Bobb and OAN are getting access to the audit that no other news outlets have, reporters on the ground say. While reporters at other Arizona and national media outlets have had to rotate through a few select spots to cover the audit, Bobb and a writer with the Gateway Pundit, another pro-Trump outlet, are exempted from that pool. She reported live from the coliseum where the audit is taking place every day last week.

Bobb disputed that she and OAN had received any “special treatment” in an email to BuzzFeed News on behalf of Voices and Votes. While she acknowledged that she had different access than members of the Arizona press corps, she said her access to cover the audit depended on “availability.” “I have been denied access at certain times and had to go on different days or at different times,” she wrote. “I am not permitted to attend whenever I want.”

Bobb also noted that OAN is not “in any way” affiliated with her fundraising group “other than allowing me to mention my efforts on air” and said the network “has not received anything as a result of Voices and Votes' donations.”

“I have openly and honestly disclosed all my efforts on air, and have handled the funds exactly as I said that I would,” she said.

Rion did not respond to requests for comment. Fann, the Senate president, deferred questions about OAN’s access to former Arizona secretary of state Ken Bennett, who is serving as an audit liaison. Bennett did not respond to multiple requests.

OAN correspondent Chanel Rion asks then-president Donald Trump a question during a White House press briefing on April 6, 2020. pix ]

Bobb noted last week that Arizona senators won’t say what would happen if the audit does find “some type of fraud” — which won’t happen, because legitimate audits have already been conducted — and that senators have said this audit is about promoting trust in future elections, not about 2020. “They would not commit to saying that they would overturn anything, but they did say they were certainly taking a look at it,” she said, citing anonymous Arizona legislators.

OAN did not respond to requests for comment on the conflict between Bobb and Rion’s work for their network and their affiliation with Voices and Votes or whether the network has a conflict-of-interest policy.

The audit itself has so far been a farce, enough so that one of the Republican state senators who voted for it told the New York Times that in practice the audit is “ridiculous” and “makes us look like idiots.” At one point, workers were checking for any traces of bamboo in the ballot paper in a frankly stupid and racist attempt to test a conspiracy theory that thousands of illegal ballots were shipped in from Asia. They were shining UV lights on ballots for reasons that weren’t really explained by officials at the time but seemed to line up with a QAnon-adjacent theory that Trump’s Department of Homeland Security had watermarked real ballots so the Democrats’ fraudulent ones could be easily found. That prompted the Maricopa County Elections Department to publicly post a fact check: “There are NO watermarks on Maricopa County ballots.”

Then there’s the firm that the Arizona Senate hired to run the whole thing, Cyber Ninjas, owned by Doug Logan. As the Arizona Mirror reported, Logan repeatedly posted conspiracies about the election being stolen and falsehoods about Dominion Voting Systems on his since-deleted Twitter account. Logan is also the author of a three-page document of “election fraud facts” posted to former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s website intended for senators to use in explaining why they would object to the election results and try to give the White House back to Trump, the Mirror also reported. Logan, it's worth noting, stood behind the document in a statement to the Mirror.

His firm and three others are now paying contractors $15 an hour and bringing in volunteers to examine the ballots — among them was a former state representative who lost his 2020 race and was also filmed on the Capitol steps during the Jan. 6 insurrection. With the process taking way longer than expected, a big bill is coming and it’s unclear who is paying it.

The Arizona Senate only gave $150,000 in taxpayer money to the project, which they knew was a laughable sum for an election audit of this size, and is allowing Cyber Ninjas to raise the rest from whoever. And several prominent Trump supporters have stepped up. Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who has peddled some of the more out-there election conspiracy theories, kicked in $1 million and has his own dark money group raising funds, per the Arizona Republic. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told the Daily Beast that he had donated. And Lin Wood, an attorney who filed a bunch of lawsuits trying to overturn the election, told Talking Points Memo and confirmed to BuzzFeed News that his 501(c)(4) #FightBack had donated to Bobb’s Voices and Votes.

Meanwhile, reporters at other outlets who are not paying for the audit had to fight to cover it at all. At one point, the Arizona Senate told media that they could only have access to the audit if they signed up for at least five six-hour shifts as volunteer observers. To be clear, they wouldn’t then get to report on the audit, their only access under this plan was as workers for the audit they were trying to cover. And, the Senate said, they could not bring laptops or cellphones or even a paper and pen with them. “People observing even executions are allowed to bring their notebooks in with them,” Arizona Capitol Times reporter Julia Shumway, who has since covered the audit, told BuzzFeed News.

Shumway and her colleagues eventually did get press access to the audit, but only after the Arizona Mirror, the Arizona Republic, and the Arizona Broadcasters Association got lawyers involved. Now, reporters have to pool their resources with one print journalist, one videographer, and one photographer allowed into the audit at any given time, and they must be escorted, even to the bathroom, Shumway said. Meanwhile, Bobb and a reporter for the Gateway Pundit can report outside of the pool.

When asked about the discrepancy in treatment for OAN and the Gateway Pundit and every other news outlet, Fann told PBS that OAN was given livestreaming rights to the audit because “they have covered this from the beginning. They are one of the firms that came in right off the bat and said we will help do all the 24-hour video so everybody has access to this 24/7, that they wanted to be a part of it. So I don’t think that’s a bad idea. If there was another network had come up and said that first, we would have went with them probably.”

She later accused other, unnamed reporters of trespassing and said they had worried about too many members of the media “walk[ing] all over the place and tak[ing] pictures.” Asked if she had any similar concerns about OAN, she responded simply, “No, huh-uh. Nope.”

UPDATE

May 18, 2021, at 2:13 p.m.

The Arizona Mirror, the Arizona Republic, and the Arizona Broadcasters Association brought the legal fight to get reporters access to the audit. A previous version of this story was unclear on who led the legal effort.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/oan-host-christina-bobb-has-been-helping-rudy-giuliani-with-trumps-legal-efforts

as it seeks to overturn the election results and keep President-elect Joe Biden from assuming power, President Donald Trump’s legal team, fronted by lawyers such as Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and until recently Sidney Powell, has been operating out of a conference room at the 2020 campaign’s downsized headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

Aiding Trump’s so-called “elite strike force” team in that effort has been an on-air host at One America News Network (OAN), a vociferously pro-Trump cable-news channel that has been endorsed by the president.

Christina Bobb chairs the Weekly Briefing on OAN. She’s also a lawyer by trade. And in recent days, she’s been spotted by several Trump officials at their office in the conference room with the rest of the president’s team. Her presence has caused a bit of confusion among actual campaign staff, who wondered if she was there to embed with the Trump legal “strike force” as a reporter.

But according to multiple knowledgeable sources, Bobb has actually been assisting the president’s long, long, long-shot legal effort—effectively taking on a secondary role as a pro-Trump lawyer even as she continues her job as a pro-Trump TV host.

“Christina is an attorney and has helped with some legal work in her personal capacity and not on behalf of OAN,” Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to Trump and his 2020 campaign, told The Daily Beast on Monday afternoon.

The Year of Batsh*t at OAN, Trump’s New Favorite Channel

ONE AMERICA, UNDER TRUMP

Justin Baragona

Such an arrangement would be absolutely unthinkable in other newsrooms. But OAN’s editorial stance is so committedly pro-Trump that it almost, almost makes sense. Bobb certainly hasn’t hidden her feelings for the president or his current legal endeavors. Even when compared to the output of other OAN on-air staff, she has shown intense commitment to the premise that Trump actually won the election that he clearly lost.

Bobb’s Twitter feed is clogged with baseless claims of fraud and grand proclamations about Trump’s chances of overturning the election results and securing a second presidential term. During on-air segments, she has suggested that there was indeed a “massive amount” of voter fraud both in Trump’s election and potentially in others, including former Republican candidate Kim Klacik’s race in Maryland (she lost her race in a heavily Democratic district by over 40 percentage points).

In recent segments about the Trump campaign’s legal efforts, Bobb has not disclosed that she has been an informal consultant to those very same efforts.

During her weekend show, she interviewed Ellis—her current legal collaborator—about recent developments in the campaign’s challenges to election results in several states. But she did not note during the segment that she had any sort of role in the campaign’s legal fight. On Twitter, Bobb has cheered on the Trump legal team, even praising its performance in a press conference in which such wild conspiracies were spun about voting corruption that the president himself reportedly thought it too far fetched. Once more, she never disclosed that she has been working with that team.

Since Friday, Bobb has not responded to multiple messages seeking comment on this story. Reached by phone on Monday, network founder and president Charles Herring declined to comment on his employee’s activity with the Trump legal team, requesting The Daily Beast email him instead. He did not respond to an email.

Bobb’s cozy relationship with the president’s legal team may be the most brazen example of the cozy relationship Trump and his campaign have maintained with members of conservative media. But it’s hardly the first.

As The Daily Beast reported in 2018, the president has regularly consulted with Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs, who would call in to private Oval Office meetings and advise the White House informally on various policies. The president also regularly canvases his friends in conservative media about administration policy and messaging, phoning Fox News stars like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, and hosting Fox personality Laura Ingraham at the White House to advocate for the use of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.

Trump Campaign Disavows Its Own Election-Conspiracy Lawyer

NO LONGER OURS

Lachlan Markay

Other news networks have allowed their personalities to dip their toes into partisan political activity, though to varying degrees. During the 2020 election, CNN contributor Ana Navarro hosted a virtual fundraiser for Biden, a move that the network said did not violate their policies because she was not paid. High-profile on-air personality Van Jones also advised Jared Kushner on the police-reform executive order signed by Trump earlier this year.

To avoid conflicts of interest, news networks generally do not allow their on-air contributors to endorse or run for office or work on political campaigns or political action committees while appearing as a paid analyst. Over the past month, since Joe Biden’s election, MSNBC has cut ties with at least four contributors who have taken advisory roles in the president-elect’s transition effort.

But OAN stands out in its on-air fealty to Trump, even when compared to the standards observed by its competitors in pro-MAGA right-wing media.

Two days before Election Day, The Daily Beast asked OAN president Charles Herring if the network would call the election for Trump if the president, as he had planned to do, declared victory preemptively. Herring responded by messaging a lengthy statement that included, “OAN is a subscriber to the Associated Press’ Votecast data and Votecount elections results technology," and that for "Winner Projections," the network "will be utilizing primarily Associated Press’ Votecast data and Votecount." (The statement also references the “expert analysis” provided by “Christina Bobb, host of Weekly Briefing.”)

In propping up an alternate media universe in which Trump didn’t lose, OAN is ignoring its own system of data collection. The AP has long since called the 2020 presidential election for Biden.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/oregon-trump-supporters-antifa/

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trump supporter pulls gun as tensions flare at clash with antifascists in Oregon

Zachary Petrizzo and Salon March 29, 2021

On Sunday, Trump supporters, reportedly including members of the far-right militia the Proud Boys, exchanged blows with approximately 150 antifascist demonstrators in Salem, Oregon. The two rival groups clashed near the State Capitol building as the day came to a close, with one Trump supporter being detained after drawing a firearm on black-clad demonstrators who had allegedly damaged his vehicle dressed in "black bloc."

During the afternoon hours, anti-fascist demonstrations could be seen blocking access to a street nearing the Capitol building where Trump supporters were parading with pickup trucks bearing pro-Trump flags. The apparent objective of the antifascist demonstrations on Sunday was to derail a planned right-wing event called "Freedom" in Salem's central town square.

"The 'Freedom' rally was advertised starting in February on social media as an event to honor those who 'fought for our freedoms,'" The Statesman Journal reported. As the afternoon progressed and tensions flared, an additional video emerged of a blue truck barreling through the demonstration's roadblock and nearly crashing straight into one demonstrator in the middle of the street.

According to Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Sergio Olmos, some vehicles apparently belonging to Trump supporters were pelted with various objects or "splattered" with paint. "Several other vehicles also drove in and near the crowd over the course of the afternoon. Anti-fascist protesters threw objects and splattered some of the vehicles with paint," OPB reported.

Late in the afternoon, one Trump supporter was detained by Salem police after he pulled a gun on antifascist demonstrators, apparently after one of his windows was smashed and paint was flung on his silver pickup, which was festooned with American flags and bore red, white and blue striping. As seen in news images, the man was wearing a hoodie that read, "I Stand for the Flag/ I Kneel for the Cross," a popular right-wing slogan. The man appeared to pull a handgun from his waistband, but no shots were fired.

Police quickly moved in to detain the man, who tossed the firearm into the bed of his pickup truck before complying with law enforcement.

Oregon has been the site of numerous confrontations between right-wing and left-wing protesters over the past few years, but this was the first notable such encounter since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. "Violent protests between the sides were common during the Trump administration, as anti-liberal groups would often travel to cities like Portland and Salem to engage in the conflicts," as Oregon Public Broadcasting noted in its report.

Following the Salem clash, One America News (OAN) correspondent Jack Posobiec — who has frequently collaborated with neo-Nazis and white supremacists — attempted to frame the incident in quite different terms, writing that "armed Antifa insurrections attempted to overthrow the Oregon state capitol today." That does not appear to be the case.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/rachel-maddow/

Far-right One America News must pay $258,391.50 in legal fees to MSNBC.

"A federal judge in California has ordered Herring Networks, the parent company of far-right conservative media organization One America News Network (OAN), to pay MSNBC and host Rachel Maddow $250,000 in attorney's fees stemming from a defamation lawsuit that was dismissed last year," Law & Crime reported Saturday.

"Herring in July 2019 filed a lawsuit against Maddow which claimed the liberal host had defamed OAN when she discussed reports that one of the network's contributors also worked for the Russia state news organization Sputnik. Maddow went on to state that OAN 'literally is paid Russian propaganda,' which OAN's parent company claimed was false and defamatory. Herring, the parent company, then filed a defamation lawsuit seeking $10 million," Law & Crime explained. "Attorneys representing Maddow and MSNBC responded by filing a special motion to strike the case under California's Anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (Anti-SLAPP) law."

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant sided with MSNBC, entitling the network to expenses under California law.

"The court calculated that Maddow's team of high-priced attorneys from the law firm Gibson Dunn—including famed First Amendment attorney Ted Boutrous, Jr.—were entitled to collect on 363.1 hours of work totaling $247,667.50, plus an additional $10,724 for hours billed by paralegals," Law & Crime reported.

Read the full report.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/rachel-maddow/

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an 221

In a Politico deep dive into a day of watching hyper-conservative One America News (OAN), reporter Tina Ngyuen wrote that the network is struggling to fill time with Donald Trump off the stage and staying out of the public eye while awaiting his impeachment trial in the Senate next week.

The network, which was just slapped with having pay to $250,000 in attorney's fees stemming from a defamation lawsuit that was dismissed last year against MSNBC, has been elevated by the ex-president as his network of choice after his falling out with Fox News but now, as the report notes, won't even grace them with an interview to help boost their viewership.

As the report states, "Since the election, conservative networks have been locked in a three-way wrestling match for who gets the MAGA television audience. Fox News has been deemed traitorous by Trump's fans for reporting that Joe Biden fairly won the presidential election, and is seeing its worst ratings in decades. Newsmax initially ate into Fox's pro-Trump audience post-election, but more recently the network has alienated many of its fans for the same reason."

However, without the ex-president making public appearances and rallying his base -- and with his social media accounts shuttered -- the network has little in the way of red meat to throw to his avid supporters who depend on them for MAGA-influenced news.

"Without Trump providing feedback or free advertising in real time, OAN was a strange, empty temple to MAGA culture, with its acolytes and prophets filling in the gaps of his silence with their fantasies—often illogical, frequently venomous and largely a collection of memes—of what they thought their leader would want them to say," Nguyen wrote before reporting, "And they missed him. Boy, did they miss him. 'Pass our best wishes on to President Trump if you could, please,' primetime host Dan Ball said to Trump adviser Jason Miller at one point. 'And I'll throw it out there, we're requesting that interview. We keep asking. We're gonna ask again.' Miller gamely laughed."

The report also notes that the network is mostly filling time sniping at President Joe Biden's administration, but the longing for Trump is still strong with the Nguyen reporting that, during primetime, "The host of the 6 p.m. block had the night off, so OAN instead re-broadcast a documentary they had aired on Inauguration Day, entitled 'Trump: the Legacy of a Patriot.' For the next 45 minutes, a man in a star-spangled tie presented a stream of bullet points detailing Trump's accomplishments."

You can read more here.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/trump-oann/

me

For months now, One America News Network (OAN) has backed former President Donald Trump's most outlandish, baseless claims regarding the 2020 presidential election — namely his repeated attacks on Dominion Voting Systems.

Now, according to Business Insider, the network appears to be quietly distancing from the former president's rhetoric by removing content related to the voter fraud conspiracy theories Trump pushed for several months.

According to Yahoo, "the 'Dominion Voting Systems' category tag included now-deleted stories based on groundless allegations, such as [former Trump campaign attorney Sidney] Powell claiming Dominion had a 'vote switch algorithm,' Giuliani claiming the supposed algorithm created a specific margin for Biden's victory and an interview with someone claiming a Dominion executive has secret ties to Antifa."

Much of OANN's coverage focused heavily on the conspiracy theories that were included in Powell's lawsuits. The network came under fire for its reporting on the election-technology company after employees began receiving death threats over conspiracy theories about the election. The outlet's decision to remove content may be due to the impending threat of litigation. Back in December, Dominion defamation attorney Tom Clare sent out letters demanding "public retractions and apologies" for the damaging content the outlet posted.

In a Zoom press conference, Clare said, "These false allegations have caused catastrophic damage to this company. They have branded Dominion, a voting company, as perpetrating a massive fraud. Those allegations triggered a media firestorm that promoted those same false claims to a global audience."

On many occasions, OANN echoed Trump's tweets and other falsehoods. The former president also had a habit of tweeting articles and media from the outlet to circulate more false claims.

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State officials predict week-long election results

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/oan-doubles-down-on-election-conspiracy-theories-while-facing-possible-defamation-lawsuit-report/

One American News, like Newsmax TV, has gone out of its way to promote the baseless conspiracy theory that President Donald Trump, not President-elect Joe Biden, really won the 2020 presidential election. Two companies that have been targeted by far-right election conspiracy theorists include Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, both of which specialize in election technology. And journalist Kelsey Vlamis, in an article published by Business Insider on Christmas Day 2020, reports that OAN has been doubling down on election conspiracy theories while being threatened with a defamation lawsuit by Dominion.

According to Vlamis, "In response to threats of a defamation lawsuit, the One America News Network is leaning further into some election conspiracy theories that the network has featured on its shows. Dominion Voting Systems previously sent OAN letters threatening to sue, accusing the network of spreading the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that the election technology company manipulated votes in favor of President-elect Joe Biden in the November general election."

Dominion, Vlamis notes, "asked the network to save any documents or correspondence related to Dominion." And OAN, according to Vlamis, "responded by requesting Dominion keep records of certain documents so the network can 'preserve its own claims and defenses in the event of litigation.' The conservative news network sent similar letters to Smartmatic, another election technology company."

Dominion has been a target of far-right attorney, conspiracy theorist and Trump supporter Sidney Powell, who made the baseless claim that Dominion's voting technology was used to help Biden steal the election just as it gave the late President Hugo Chávez an unfair advantage in Venezuela — and Dominion has responded that its technology has never even been used in that South American country. Dominion has filed a lawsuit against Trump's campaign and Powell.

In a late November press release, Dominion explained, "Dominion has no ties to the Venezuelan government, nor any other foreign government, including China and Iran. Dominion has never participated in any elections in Venezuela and has no connection or relationship with the now deceased former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. Other companies have serviced elections in Venezuela, but Dominion is not one of them."

On Christmas Eve Day, Vlamis reports, OAN asked Smartmatic to "save any correspondence between Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica and a number of individuals, including former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. The president's allies have also claimed, without evidence, that Smartmatic was working with the socialist Venezuelan government and Chávez, who died in 2013, to disrupt the U.S. presidential election."

Vlamis notes, "In addition to OAN, Dominion has sent letters to Fox News and Newsmax with threats to sue for defamation, as well as conservative media figures like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, among others."

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neglected on stop steal vs nzmx, tho both trying for fox defectors after az call

https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-network/

after weeks of refusing to acknowledge or accept the outcome of the 2020 election, President Donald Trump's "alternative facts" news networks are clearly struggling with how to proceed. But with the meeting of the Electoral College, the reality of President-elect Joe Biden's win is creeping in. Newsmax is finally reporting the truth about Biden becoming the next president of the United States, while One America News Network has a slightly different stance.

The Washington Post reported that, unlike Newsmax, the smaller OANN downplayed the Electoral College in its television coverage. Nevertheless, the network quietly shared a retweet acknowledging the vote.

That tweet read: "BREAKING: Joe Biden has cleared the 270-electoral-vote mark to formalize his presidential victory with California's 55 votes. (Per AP)"...However, their site continues to publish pieces suggesting that widespread voter fraud is the reason for Biden's victory despite having no evidence to support those claims. The allegations of fraud are supported by misinterpretations of the facts, misunderstandings of the law, special pleading, and some outright lies.

Both conservative networks have been the main television sources airing Trump's unfounded grievances and unproven claims of voter fraud. Fox News, which played a significant role in initially calling the election for Biden, alienated many of its viewers with the truth, even as much of its coverage gave excessive credence to Trump's fraud claims.

No matter how outlandish the claim, Newsmax and OANN have enthusiastically reported the president's claims and refused to accept the outcome of the election. In fact, they have even advocated for Trump's attempts to overturn the outcome of the election. Conservative attorneys Victoria Toensinga and Joseph diGenova said on Newsmax still believe there will be more avenues to argue Trump's points.

"There will be a lot discussed about this over the next 24 hours," diGenova said, the Post reported. Toensing chimed in as she added, "Maybe only on Newsmax."

However, it appears NewsMax is generally turning a corner. The Post reported that one of the outlet's anchors tried to break the news of Biden's win gently to its audience.

"What I'm trying to do is manage everyone's expectations," host John Bachman said. "These judges don't seem to be taking up these cases. This is the reality. This is the motion set in place."

Meanwhile, the Newsmax homepage now highlights Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) remarks acknowledging Biden's win.

"Many of us had hoped the presidential election would yield a different result," McConnell said of Biden's win. "But our system of government has the processes to determine who will be sworn in on Jan. 20. The Electoral College has spoken."

Like the conservative networks and McConnell, a number of other Republican lawmakers have finally conceded that Trump will not be re-elected for a second term. Sen. John Thune (R-S.C) also another top-ranking Republican senator, admitted that there comes a time when you just have to move forward. For him, the official vote on Monday was a breaking point.

"At some point, you have to face the music," said Thune. "Once the Electoral College settles the issue today, it's time for everybody to move on."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-dictator/

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Here's why Republicans who are calling for a Trump dictatorship should not be taken lightly — and aren’t going away

Trump condemned for White House 'dictator' statement to cast doubt on election results

The Conversation

Alex Henderson December 04, 2020

The United States dodged an authoritarian bullet when former Vice President Joe Biden, a centrist Democrat, became president-elect, winning 306 electoral votes and defeating defeated President Donald Trump by more than 6 million in the popular vote. But when Republican Lin Wood, a pro-Trump attorney who has been fighting the election results in Georgia, implores Trump to impose martial law and elections officials are receiving death threats for acknowledging Biden as president-elect, it is painfully obvious that there is a strong appetite for fascism in parts of the United States. And journalist Sasha Abramsky, in an article published by The Nation on December 4, warns that Republicans who are openly calling for fascism should not be taken lightly.

"We are less than seven weeks away from the inauguration, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't counting down the seconds," Abramsky writes. "For the last spasms of Trumpist rule are truly a sight and sound to behold. Trumpism is, at this point, nothing more than a blend of cultism and fascism — a violent, nihilistic howl against the pillars of American democracy unparalleled in presidential history."

Abramsky adds, however, that when "people surrounding Trump are calling for dictatorship," it "ought to send a chill up all Americans' spines." And Abramsky cites some specific examples of Trumpistas who haven't been shy about showing their authoritarianism.

"Trump campaign attorney Joe DiGenova said that Chris Krebs, the election security official whom Trump fired by tweet last month after he defended the integrity of the election, should be 'drawn and quartered' and 'taken out at dawn and shot,'" Abramsky observes. "Stalin couldn't have said it better himself when talking about his perceived enemies in the Soviet bureaucracy.

Former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell…. retweeted a call to invoke the Insurrection Act, suspend the meeting of the Electoral College and set up military tribunals to deal with Trump's enemies. The following day, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, coming off a recent presidential pardon from Trump, urged his erstwhile boss to declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and order new presidential elections under the supervision of the military."

Abramsky adds, "Far-right media personalities have joined the fascist clamor. Lou Dobbs of Fox Business recently called for Trump to take unspecified 'drastic action' against his enemies. The One America News Network has also suggested that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act as a way to remain in office."

The journalist stresses that "when a fanatical movement's hold on power starts to diminish, the extremists have a tendency to eat their own." And Abramsky points to the recent attacks on Attorney General William Barr from the far right as a disturbing example.

Barr has been one of Trump's most aggressive defenders, often inspiring unflattering comparisons to the late Republican attorney Roy Cohn (who was an ally of Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s and represented Trump during the 1970s). But Barr, during an interview with the Associated Press, essentially acknowledged Biden as president-elect and said there was no evidence that widespread voter fraud swung the election in Biden's favor — and Trumpistas like Dobbs are furious with Barr for it.

It should be noted that far-right fascists don't necessarily come to power through a violent coup d'état or golpe de estado; sometimes, they are voted into office and try to gradually undermine a democracy's system of checks and balances. That has happened in Turkey with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and in Hungary with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and hopefully, Brazil's checks and balances will withstand the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Meanwhile, in France, far-right white nationalist Marine Le Pen (leader of the National Front) lost the country's 2017 presidential race but is likely to run for president again.

Most Americans rejected fascism in the United States' 2020 presidential election. But Abramsky warns that the appetite for fascism in the U.S. hasn't gone away.

"Trump's fascist yammering and the GOP Senate's collaborationist behavior isn't just a footnote to the 2020 election campaign," Abramsky warns. "Rather, it's a prologue to what could come next…. The GOP as an institution has entirely abandoned its commitment to the democratic process…. It's a hell of a warning shot as to how the Grand Old Party intends to conduct itself in the months and years ahead."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/giuliani-created-2-secret-companies-amid-his-work-in-ukraine-and-we-think-he-only-had-one-client/

rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, has told Salon that he created two new companies last year amid his work on Trump’s behalf trying to dig up damaging information on Joe Biden in Ukraine. The purpose of the companies, especially that of Giuliani’s brand new one-man law firm — as well as their possible connections to the president — is somewhat unclear.

According to New York records, one of the companies, first called Giuliani Media and now known as Giuliani Communications, was created in November, just before Giuliani traveled to Ukraine with a production crew from One America News Network (OAN).

During that trip, Giuliani interviewed Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, who was recently sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department as an “active Russian agent,” for material included in a documentary later aired on OAN. Giuliani released his interview with Derkach a few months later.

Although the existence of Giuliani Communications has not been previously reported, its creation lines up with reports at the time that Giuliani planned to create a podcast aimed at defending Trump from the impeachment narrative. He eventually launched that podcast, which airs regularly, and has conducted video interviews as well — including the one with Derkach. For unclear reasons, Giuliani changed the company name to Giuliani Communications in March 2020, the same month he released his Derkach interview.

giuliani’s other new company is his personal law firm, Rudolph W. Giuliani PLLC, which was created in June 2019, according to New York records. The company was first identified in an October 2019 report from Roll Call. Giuliani told Salon that he had set up the firm because a client of his wanted money put in escrow.

“I didn’t want Giuliani Partners to do it, because I know the ethical rules,” Giuliani said, but declined to name the client or to explain the potential ethical problems further. “I’m just a country lawyer,” he added.

“The question is what the client hired Giuliani to do,” Brett Kappel, top authority on lobbying and government ethics law, told Salon. If the client had hired Giuliani to provide legal advice, Kappel explained, or to “represent him in litigation or a negotiation where an exchange of money was contemplated,” then Giuliani would be required to place any funds entrusted to him by the client in an escrow account separate from the law firm’s funds. The former New York mayor’s consulting business, Giuliani Partners, “isn’t a law firm and isn’t subject to the same ethical requirements,” Kappel said.

That raises the intriguing question of why Giuliani had not set up a personal law practice until he got this specific request from this specific client. Although attorneys can represent clients without forming a firm, a PLLC shields the owner from liability.

At the time Giuliani formed his PLLC, he had already been representing Trump as his personal attorney for more than a year. He also claims to have represented Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, with whom he also struck up a business arrangement in 2018. Parnas and Fruman later ran political errands for Giuliani in Ukraine.

On the day Giuliani set up his personal firm, he seemed to have Ukraine on the brain, tweeting, “New Pres of Ukraine still silent on investigation of Ukrainian interference in 2016 election and alleged Biden bribery of Pres Poroshenko. Time for leadership and investigate both if you want to purge how Ukraine was abused by Hillary and Obama people.”

That same month, according to the Washington Post, Giuliani began doing consulting work for Luis Abinader, a presidential candidate in the Dominican Republic. It is not clear whether he also did legal work for Abinader.

A few days later, Giuliani he took a trip with Parnas to London that lasted several days, during which Giuliani met with Venezuelan financier Alejandro Betancourt, who is currently the subject of a major money laundering investigation in the U.S. Giuliani later took on Betancourt as a client, and spoke on his behalf to Justice Department prosecutors in September.

Giuliani told Salon in a previous phone conversation that Parnas was his client during a trip the two took to Madrid in July 2019, when he met with top Ukrainian foreign policy official Andriy Yermak (who subsequently became chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelensky). Giuliani made the claim about representing Parnas when he was asked about his meeting with Yermak, explaining that attorney-client privilege barred him from discussing details of their conversations. Parnas’ current attorney has denied that Giuliani was representing Parnas at that time.

Giuliani claims to have done all his work for Trump free of charge, though the president has never publicly acknowledged that. Giuliani’s work on Trump’s behalf ultimately led to the president’s impeachment.

“Trump did not disclose on his financial forms, as required, that he was taking pro bono counsel from Giuliani,” Jordan Libowitz, of the government watchdog Citizens for Ethics in Washington, told Salon. Trump has alleged that “there’s no way of assessing the value of Giuliani’s work,” Libowitz said, “even though it is his responsibility to keep track of it.”

Giuliani disclosed the previously unknown companies in a conversation with Salon about another previously unreported company that he created in 2002 and which received taxpayer-backed emergency loans this spring. Salon’s investigation of the company offered new insight into Giuliani’s arcane business arrangements, which are reportedly the subject of subpoenas from federal investigators in the Southern District of New York. Experts told Salon that the company’s loan application raises questions of bank fraud, a felony.

That SDNY probe is also reportedly investigating whether Giuliani’s activity in Ukraine violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).

Matt Sanderson, a top FARA law attorney, told Salon that despite reams of reports, and Giuliani’s history of peddling known Russian disinformation about both Joe Biden and his son Hunter, there isn’t enough public information to determine whether Giuliani’s work in Ukraine would qualify him, or OAN, as foreign agents.

“We would have to know if anyone acting on behalf of foreign interests, especially someone tied to the government, paid for or directed that work,” Sanderson said.

OAN, as a U.S. media company, is exempt from registering as an agent. Sanderson, however, pointed to a recent episode involving former CNN host Larry King, who conducted a blatantly unethical interview with Russian journalist Anastasia Dolgova that was filmed in two parts: King’s scripted questions, and then Dolgova’s answers.

King’s exposure, Sanderson told ProPublica, might hinge on whether he was “acting in his capacity as a member of the news media,” or was “doing an infomercial where he’s paid specifically to do the interview.” The same might apply here to OAN, Sanderson said.

Trump has often spoken glowingly of OAN — which has positioned itself significantly to the right of Fox News and has frequently spread even more blatant misinformation — as a preferred alternative. The president promoted the network’s Ukraine coverage several times on Twitter, including a Chanel Rion interview with former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko, during which Giuliani was present at the table.

Giuliani’s interview with Andrii Derkach is no longer available on OAN’s site, and all stories in which “Derkach” is tagged have been removed. OAN president Charles Herring previously told Salon that the network’s website automatically deletes older content, but there are indications that the Derkach material was deliberately removed. One story in which his name was misspelled as “Derkash,” for instance, was not deleted.

Giuliani did not reply to Salon’s questions about whether he had charged or expensed any of his Ukraine-related activity on President Trump’s behalf to either Giuliani Communications or Rudolph W. Giuliani PLLC.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/rudy-giuliani-collaborated-on-smear-of-joe-biden-with-active-russian-agent-whos-now-under-us-treasury-sanctions

former LifeLock spokesperson (and New York mayor) Rudy Giuliani is now seeking to distance himself from a member of the Ukrainian parliament who was sanctioned last week by the U.S. Treasury Department as an “active Russian agent.”

The sanctions target Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker who has ties to Russian intelligence that date back more than a decade. Treasury now accuses Derkach of running a “covert influence campaign” aimed at the 2020 U.S. presidential election since late 2019.

Giuliani met with Derkach last year in Ukraine in the former mayor’s role as Donald Trump’s attorney, during a trip aimed at digging up dirt on Joe Biden, then viewed as the Democratic frontrunner and now the party’s presidential nominee. Derkach and Giuliani discussed the much-debunked allegations about Biden in a segment on One America News Network (OAN), which Giuliani replayed on his personal podcast this March.

According to the Treasury Department, Derkach was pushing “false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 presidential election” into U.S. media via press conferences, interviews and other statements.

His efforts include releasing edited audiotapes that purport to document improprieties by Joe Biden in his dealings as vice president with the Ukrainian government.

When asked how he felt about his work with someone whom the Trump administration has now sanctioned as an active Russian agent, Giuliani offered no remorse, replying to Salon by text message:

“Yes I am very comfortable with what I did now leave me alone I’m with my friends discussing our experience on September 11 and keep covering up for the Biden Family making millions selling his public office.”

Giuliani, who forwarded a supposed dossier of information on Biden to the State Department in the spring of 2019, told NPR that he had “never tried to influence the election.”

Derkach, Giuliani said in comments to NPR, “had no unique information that wasn’t already known except the $5.3 billion and that is being investigated in UKRAINE.” That again promotes Derkach’s debunked claims that Biden and his family somehow enriched themselves on a grand scale from business deals in Ukraine.

Giuliani’s activity in Ukraine last year led directly to the impeachment of his client, President Trump. Even as congressional impeachment hearings were proceeding, Giuliani traveled to Ukraine with an OAN news production team in an apparent attempt to justify his smears against Biden and create an alternative to the impeachment narrative. A few weeks after his trip, the House voted to impeach Trump.

Giuliani also popped up in an intriguing photograph with Chinese journalist Ding Gang, an associate of expat billionaire Guo Wengui, a Mar-a-Lago member who has been accused of being an agent of the Chinese government. [twt pix of bannon]

as Salon first reported, Bannon’s nonprofit group Citizens of the American Republic — subject of a documentary and now also a federal investigation — employed topTrump campaign strategist Jason Miller from October 2019 until at least February 2020, at a salary of $20,000 a month.

==

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-trolls-hype-coronavirus-and-giuliani-conspiracies

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-trolls-hype-coronavirus-and-giuliani-conspiracies

db no lnx pix docs

The network of Russian-linked trolls identified by The Daily Beast goes beyond just a single post on COVID-19 conspiracies. From at least 2016 through this year, trolls sought to spread disinformation on elections in the U.S. and Europe, pit Western countries against each other, and ruin Ukraine’s international reputation.

In December 2019, as impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump took place, Russian-linked trolls spread an article that falsely claimed Democrats colluded with a former KGB officer during the 2016 elections. The article, “Former KGB agent sponsored Democrats in the 2016 election,” falsely accuses Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk of having worked for Soviet intelligence during the Cold War and financing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

The theme of Democratic collusion with Ukraine to undermine Trump’s candidacy, often touted by President Trump and his allies, is a theme Russian intelligence operatives have pushed for years, according to The New York Times.

Relying on Rudy

Many of the Secondary Infektion stories used phony screengrabs or forged documents to further their narrative. By contrast, the authors of the fake KGB support story relied on the conspiracy theorizing of Rudy Giuliani and the Trump-cheering cable news channel OANN to push their story.

“Rudy Giuliani's recent visit to Ukraine exposed many secrets of the Democratic Party, which is trying to distract the public from its crimes through the impeachment of the incumbent US president,” the trolls wrote alongside links to OANN’s coverage of the impeachment scandal.

The Secondary Infektion crew also ventured beyond the relitigation of America’s 2016 presidential election to meddle in elections in Europe.

In advance of Sweden’s 2018 elections, the trolls used a series of fake conspiracies focused on the right wing nationalist Sweden Democrats party to interfere in Sweden’s 2018 election. Secondary Infektion propagandists forged a fake letter in stilted English purporting to show Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warning Poland’s foreign minister that “Russian special services are going to provide technical and material support to the Swedish Democrats and help them in the election campaign” as part of a hacking campaign.

“It bears the digital hallmarks of forgery,” said Sam Meyer, a research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Meyer ran the Pompeo letter image through the Tungstène imagery analysis software and found that the image was based on a digital template bearing the State Department letterhead and Secretary Pompeo’s signature with the text digitally added separately.

Many of the the Secondary Infektion articles identified by The Daily Beast appeared aimed at dividing the U.S. from its allies in Europe.

Since its forces began occupying eastern Ukraine, Russia has tried to oppose the U.S. sale of lethal aid to Ukrainian forces, particularly the Javelin anti-tank missiles which could be useful in fending off Russian armor. As the Trump administration mulled the prospect of a sale in the fall of 2017, Russian trolls published a forged screenshot pretending to come from the Twitter account of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria. “Javelins from Ukraine will help #YPG/#YPJ fighters defeat #IS in Deir al-Zour. #JazeeraStorm #defeatDaesh.”

Except the tweet was never sent and neither American nor Ukrainian forces ever transferred Javelins to partner forces in Syria. The apparent goal of the forgery and accompanying article was an attempt to paint the Trump administration’s arms sale to Ukraine as reckless and to create tensions between the U.S., Ukraine, and Turkey, which has strongly objected to transfers of less sophisticated arms to Kurdish forces in Syria.

But not all of the articles fit into such neat thematic categories. At least one appeared aimed at diverting attention from or at least provoking confusion about a criminal case involving the theft of classified information from the National Security Agency.

Federal prosecutors charged former NSA contractor Hal Martin in 2016 with unlawfully taking home vast amounts of classified NSA data. Martin had initially come under suspicion as a result of an investigation into the publication of classified NSA hacking tools released by a group calling itself “The Shadow Brokers,” which some believe may be a front for Russian intelligence.

Martin was never charged with involvement in the Shadow Brokers leak. But in November 2016, a month after prosecutors arrested him, personas bearing the hallmarks of the Secondary Infektion campaign began posting articles falsely claiming that Martin had betrayed the identities of undercover CIA officers associated with the Bush-era torture program.

Another Secondary Infektion article took aim at what would seem an unlikely target for the Kremlin: former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. In 2018, while Medvedev was still serving as prime minister of Russia, the trolls used a fake screenshot of a nonexistent article from The Guardian to cast doubt on his political future, writing that Medvedev was “facing a whole bunch of problems, from lack of financing to health issues and even alcohol.”

Bang for the buck?

For all the effort put into the troll campaign, the impact appears to have been small to nonexistent. In 2016, IRA trolls operating Twitter and Facebook accounts racked up millions of views throughout the U.S. presidential election, but the greater scrutiny of Russian disinformation and more cautious operational security practices used by the Secondary Infektion have come at a steep cost in terms of reach.

None of the articles or forgeries identified by The Daily Beast appear to have been picked up and amplified by news outlets or social media users outside of Secondary Infektion.

"One of the biggest mysteries about Secondary Infektion is what the operators thought they were doing,” said Nimmo. “I've never seen so little bang to the buck."

In the history of documented Secondary Infektion articles, only one appears to have gained any traction—the leak of authentic U.K.-U.S. trade documents shortly before the British general election in 2019.

[Leaked: Secret Documents From Russia’s Election Trolls

RED SPILL

Spencer Ackerman,

Gideon Resnick,

Ben Collins

Trump’s New Favorite Channel Employs Kremlin-Paid Journalist

MOONLIGHTING

Kevin Poulsen]

The reach of articles identified by The Daily Beast is much shorter. The posts, published to obscure and niche web forums like WorthyChristianForums and DefendingTheTruth, garnered just a few dozen views according to view counters available on some of the sites. Some generated agreement or at least debate among a handful of forumgoers and social media users where they were posed, but they also generated derision and skepticism as well.

“Arthur,” one Reddit commenter wrote under a Secondary Infektion persona’s piece about Brexit, “you've done something that I couldn't imagine was possible. You've written a piece so poor that brexiteers and remainers can unite around how dreadful your opinions are. There's something in here to make everyone scoff.”

Others social media users noticed the pattern of single-use accounts posting articles on known Russian themes and found them appropriately suspicious. “New Reddit User. 1 post. Article about the east.” a Redditor commented on a post trying to stir up tensions between Hungary and Ukraine. “You almost got me Putin.”

Adam Rawnsley

adam.rawnsley@thedailybeast.com

2/19

https://www.thedailybeast.com/rudy-giulianis-ukraine-investigation-on-oan-stars-some-kyivs-most-dubious-characters

no lnx

Ukraine—The witnesses stand, with their right hands raised, as if being sworn in for, well, an impeachment hearing. Only this is not in Congress. The cast of obscure Ukrainians—a group seen at home as odious and discredited—are appearing in a television show with President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, in what he casts as an investigation that parallels the process in Congress.

It would only be credible in a parallel world.

[Ukrainian Who Claimed to Have Dirt on Biden Firm Is Arrested

SWEPT UP

Betsy Swan,

Adam Rawnsley]

Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat, has been helping Giuliani produce the show for OAN, the One America News Network, a conservative channel now favored by Trump. OAN is publicizing the two-part broadcast this weekend, promising “witnesses who destroy [House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Adam Schiff’s baseless impeachment case against President Trump.”

“Watch top Ukrainian officials testify under oath the side of the story Schiff doesn’t want you to hear,” proclaims the YouTube promo for the broadcast.

But “top officials” they definitely are not. Indeed, Giuliani’s choice of guest stars in his would-be reality show, and his wider cast of sources, caused shock among many in Kyiv’s establishment who know their questionable backgrounds in considerable detail.

Tune in to @OANN with @ChanelRion and America’s Mayor and Attorney @RudyGiuliani to hear about the TRUTH in the 2016 US election and what really happened in Ukraine with the real corruption. pic.twitter.com/idHVeBOhYz

— Andrii Telizhenko (@AndriyUkraineTe) November 30, 2019

What Giuliani’s collaborators have in common is their willingness to testify in his parallel proceedings—or possibly the impeachment trial in the Senate, in the improbable event they are called—or contribute in other ways to Trump’s cause. Some of them have been doing so for years in Ukraine.

Their testimony won’t accommodate President Donald Trump’s “favor” requested during the infamous July 25 phone conversation with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump and his representatives made it clear they wanted an announcement by Zelensky of a Biden investigation, and that has not happened. But will Giuliani's machinations help put pressure on Zelensky finally to come around? That remains an open question. Those working with Giuliani include a member of Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, who is in Zelensky’s party.

Trump asked Zelensky for two things: to investigate the Bidens and explore the debunked theory that Ukraine meddled significantly in the 2016 election. He asked Zelensky to find the “hidden DNC server” mentioned in Russian propaganda in order to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report indicting 12 members of Russian military intelligence, the GRU, for hacking the Democratic National Committee.

“The server, they say Ukraine has it," Trump told Zelensky. But Ukrainian independent corruption and hacking experts share doubts about Giuliani’s sources’ intentions and the so-called evidence against Joe Biden and his son. They also see no substantiation of Russia’s aggressively propagated conspiracy theory.

Trump also asked Zelensky to work with Giuliani.

These requests, coming at a time when vital military support for Ukraine was frozen and no date was set for a promised White House meeting—pending Zelensky’s cooperation—are what triggered impeachment proceedings against Trump for abuse of power. He is accused of using the authority of the United States government to further his own personal political agenda.

None of the requests has been fulfilled and there is a strong belief among Ukraine’s independent corruption fighters that President Zelensky is not going to take Trump’s side in the impeachment process. Last week, Zelensky studiously avoided Giuliani.

[Rudy’s New Ukraine Jaunt Is Freaking Out Trump Lieutenants

EUROTRIP!!

Asawin Suebsaeng,

Erin Banco

[RELATED IN WORLD

Rudy & His Ukraine Ally Sprint Away from ‘Russian Agent’ Pal

Russian Trolls Tried to Infiltrate Left-Wing Media]

"Maria Kolesnikova, a coordinator of Viktor Babaryko's campaign headquarters, makes a heart sign with her hands outside the headquarters of Belarus' Central Electoral Commission in Minsk on July 14, 2020. - The Belarus central electoral commission on July 14, 2020 refused to register the jailed main rival to President Alexander Lukashenko as a candidate for August's presidential polls.

random grab 920

President Trump Rebuilds Military In First Term

Skepticism arises over Atlantic hit piece accusing President Trump of calling fallen service members ‘losers’ & ‘suckers’

Fort Hood disappearances, murders, deaths continue amid investigations, leadership changes

State officials predict week-long election results

Sarah Sanders says Atlantic report ‘couldn’t be further from the truth’

Video shows Biden asking China to help him become president

Rochester, N.Y. making police reforms following death of Daniel Prude

China imposing new restrictions on U.S. journalists

Montenegro opposition creates coalition capable of removing the country’s president from power

==

https://www.oann.com/tag/antifa/

no lnx

report: Suspect In Fatal Portland Shooting Killed During Encounter With Law Enforcement

A man wanted in the death of a conservative protester has been killed following a shootout with police. According to reports, 48-year-old Michael Reinoehl who described himself as 100-percent Antifa was fatally shot by authorities Thursday evening about six-miles outside Olympia, Washington.

OAN NEWSROOM

Attorney General Barr Rejects Idea Of Systemic Racism In U.S. Institutions

Attorney General William Barr is speaking out against the idea of systemic racism in American institutions. In an interview this week, he rejected the notion that racism is built into the Justice Department and, instead, suggested there’s more of an issue with stereotyping among individual cases.

OAN NEWSROOM

VP Pence Decries Biden’s Failure To Explicitly Condemn Antifa

Vice President Mike Pence stressed the importance of standing up for American values while describing the impending election as a struggle for the preservation of the country’s historical character. This message was the driving force behind Pence’s campaign speech in Exeter, Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

OAN NEWSROOM

Biden Tries To Blame Violence In Democrat-Run Cities On President Trump

Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden has attempted to redirect blame for violence in Democrat-led cities onto President Trump.

OAN NEWSROOM

President Trump Urges Portland Officials To Accept Help

After another protest in Portland turned into riot this weekend, President Trump urged local officials to ask for help. On Twitter, the president said Friday night was another bad night for the city.

OAN CONTRIBUTION

Black Lives Matter, Antifa Terrorist Using Nazi Tactics

Despite claiming to have peaceful intentions, members of Black Lives Matter and Antifa are using the same tactics of terror as the Brown Shirts of Nazi Germany. One America’s Pearson Sharp explains how their radical leftist ideologies represent a grave threat to a free democracy.

OAN CONTRIBUTION

Pro-Police Rally In Denver Shut Down By BLM, Antifa

A peaceful rally in Denver supporting police was attacked and shut down by violent members of Black Lives Matter and Antifa. One America’s Pearson Sharp has the details.

One America News Network to air “America Under Siege: Antifa,” a film scheduled to debut at UC Berkeley Free Speech Week prior to cancellation due to Antifa threats

PRESS RELEASES

One America News Network To Air “America Under Siege: Antifa”

One America News Network, will be extending broad, national exposure to the documentary film “America Under Siege: Antifa”, a documentary film scheduled to debut at the beginning of the week long free speech event on the UC Berkeley campus.

omg

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-administration-plans-250-million-ad-buy-telling-voters-not-to-worry-so-much-about-the/

Trump administration has given up on any serious attempts to curb the nation’s ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As U.S. deaths inch towards the 200,000 mark, outside experts are now warning Americans to ignore the “dysfunctional” Centers of Disease Control and Prevention after the agency issued new, Trump-favored guidelines to reduce testing, rather than expand it. There is no federal contract tracing effort. There is no standard, expert-based pandemic policy—each state has been left to its own devices, with federal officials ignoring even the most serious state outbreaks.

Don’t worry, though. It’s not like the Trump-led federal government is entirely asleep at the wheel. The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking bids for a new quarter-billion dollar communications contract, reports Politico. No, not to encourage Americans to social distance, wear masks, or get tested—don’t be stupid. The new publicity campaign will instead “defeat despair and inspire hope,” advising businesses how to operate “in the new normal” and instilling “confidence to return to work and restart the economy.”

Yeah, we’re all going to die.

You will note, dear tired reader, that this language sounds very much like Trump’s own anti-pandemic anti-policy. Rather than taking more aggressive steps to curtail the pandemic—as nearly every other nation on the planet has—the new publicity campaign will presume we live in a “new normal.” It will be based, says “a senior HHS official” who for some reason would not go on the record to say these embarrassing things, on “defeating the mental health challenges of the coronavirus,” which sounds explicitly like Trump’s own insistence that it’s depression over social distancing that’s killing people, not the deadly disease marked on the death certificates.

so instead of a new testing program or, say, mailing out masks to every American household, we’re getting an advertising campaign meant to “defeat despair.” Oh, and Politico reports the contract will be managed by Trump ex-campaign guy Michael Caputo.

Odds that Trump loyalist Michael Caputo is going to sign off on a $250 million ad campaign telling Americans to “defeat despair” through the remarkably effective practice of wearing masks, against Donald Trump’s personal wishes? Zero. Less than zero. Zero minus the square root of Ivanka.

Anyhoo, the idea that the Trump-led federal government is, immediately before the (cough) November elections, going to be combatting the COVID-19 pandemic via an ad campaign telling Americans to maybe just stop being sad about it is … well, let’s be honest. It’s so on-brand it hurts.

It’s the “Be Best” of infectious disease campaigns. Sorry, we still need to limit testing—but here’s some tips on how you can restart the economy, fellow patriots. Nothing inspires “hope” like getting your unmasked face back to work, unless it’s getting legislation passed immunizing your employer from consequences if you die afterword. Now that’s inspiring.

==

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/19/journalists-blast-one-america-news-series-giuliani-087893

MICHAEL CALDERONE

12/19/2019

Upstart conservative network One America News’ decision to turn over three hours this week to Rudy Giuliani’s conspiracy theories gleaned from his trip to Ukraine found a receptive audience in the White House — less so in major newsrooms and TV studios.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Wednesday that Giuliani brought back “dirt of questionable credibility” from his trip with a reporter from a “far-right fringe cable channel.” On MSNBC, national security correspondent Ken Dilanian said Giuliani floated a “bogus conspiracy theory” about Joe Biden on OAN, a network “which makes Fox News look like PBS.” The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake labeled the OAN series “a stunning piece of propaganda."

charles Herring, president of One America News, shot back in an email to POLITICO. “We recognize that some ‘media’ outlets won’t acknowledge proven facts and won’t do their own time consuming and costly investigate work if the facts don’t fit their narrative,” he wrote. “This is simply a part of our media landscape today.”

But for much of the media world, OAN’s decision to give Giuliani a direct role in preparing its Ukraine report presents a troubling ethical development in the media landscape. Where once opinion shows began supplanting traditional news, now openly partisan content — presented largely unfiltered by the president’s personal attorney — is seeking to supplant content that’s opinionated but still independent.

Trump has celebrated OAN’s willingness to take his largely unfiltered line, retweeting several clips from the three-part OAN series this week in making his public case against impeachment. That’s come as he continues to carp at Fox News over its polling and bookings and suggested that only its “pro Trump Fox shows do well.”

Trump has displayed no similar frustrations with OAN, which promised in the three-hour series to dismantle House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff’s impeachment case, and, like the president, framed the proceedings as a hoax. [some gop rep at rnc called it "illegal"?] But while the series features many of the storytelling attributes of a news documentary, media experts say it departs from traditional journalism in giving such a prominent role to the president’s personal attorney.

“I think this completely crosses a line,” said professor Kathleen Culver, director for journalism ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“I would define one of the central characteristics of journalism as independence and here there is no independence. It is taking a source and bringing that source into the actual information gathering,” she said. “By making Giuliani a central figure in the gathering of information,” she added, “I think they’ve moved out of the realm of journalism and into the realm of advocacy."

mark Lukasiewicz, dean of the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University, said “the advocate is in the driver’s seat” in the OAN series, with Giuliani bringing forth documents on screen and helping conduct interviews. “The role typically played by an investigative journalist is played by Rudy Giuliani,” he said.

Herring did not respond directly to a question about about OAN’s independence with regard to Giuliani’s involvement in the project. But OAN correspondent Chanel Rion told viewers why her team took Trump’s attorney along to Ukraine and Budapest.

“His hundreds of hours and months of research into what he calls the great political scandal of our time made him the only person to go with us on this trip,” she said of Giuliani. Rion told viewers that their findings would “both astound and enrage” and offer a side kept from viewers by a “complacent media.”

The Herring family, which made a fortune printing circuit boards, is a fairly new entrant to the media business. The company launched lifestyle channel Wealth TV, later renamed AWE, in 2004, and created One America News in 2013. The San Diego-based network, which is reportedly available in about 35 million homes — compared with at least 90 million for Fox News — generally covers the major headlines of the day without excessive punditry and turns to conservative hosts at night.

But OAN's pro-Trump leanings became apparent during the 2016 election, as it turned to his rallies live, and have continued into the presidency. The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher reported in a 2017 profile of OAN that CEO and founder Robert Herring “directed his channel to push Trump’s candidacy” and “steer away from the new president’s troubles.”

Charles Herring disputed the notion that his father takes such a heavy hand in news coverage. “News anchors are not allowed to express opinions,” he told the Post. “They simply deliver the news and we leave it up to the viewers to decide. It’s not our family’s mission to determine the news.”

On Twitter, Robert Herring’s views are clear. “Our ratings are going up because we treat you like you are the President of the United States,” Herring responded to Trump when touting OAN’s ratings. “Your ratings are going up because you are doing a great job. Let’s keep it up!”

As Trump visited San Diego in September, Herring pointed out to the president that OAN “ran a 30-minute special report detailing the accomplishments you have made."

The network’s official Twitter account, however, once called “bullshit” when Trump didn’t mention OAN among his media boosters. “President Trump recently gave a speech, thanking his supporters in the media. Not a single mention of One America News — one of his GREATEST supporters,” read the tweet, which, according to a Guardian report, was sent by Robert Herring. Earlier this month, he tweeted: “If you are upset about the Democrats trying to impeach President Trump, let everyone know by putting an @OANN sticker on your car!”

Trump has returned the affection. He tweeted in October that OAN “is appreciated by many people trying so hard to find a new, consistent and powerful VOICE!” and last month lauded the network for “seeking the facts and the truth.” Trump retweeted at least five clips from the OAN series this past week.

Charles Herring told POLITICO that OAN is “very appreciative of all our viewers and the support and encouragement they extend to us via comments on our feedback page and tweets/retweets — including from a special viewer in the White House.”

The testimony of current and former officials, along with Trump’s own words, has shown that he urged Ukraine’s president to launch investigations into the Bidens and a 2016 election conspiracy theory as the U.S. withheld aid to Ukraine. The allegations from an unnamed whistleblower, which ignited the scandal, have been largely confirmed, as PolitiFact concluded Monday in giving Trump its “Lie of the Year” award.

Rion told viewers OAN was holding "our own hearing" where they'd be the jury. The OAN team and Giuliani, she said, will present a side “that not only destroys Adam Schiff’s case for impeachment, but uncovers what may be one of the greatest cover-ups of our time."

in the series, Giuliani makes the unsubstantiated allegation that Biden committed “bribery” in calling for the removal of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin because his son Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. Biden’s request at the time was the view of the Obama administration, which, like several Western nations and international organizations, saw Shokin as not aggressively prosecuting corruption cases.

rion and Giuliani traveled abroad to interview Shokin, as well as Yuriy Lutsenko, whom The New Yorker dubbed in an extensive profile this week as a key Giuliani contact. They also met in a studio with Ukrainian “witnesses” alleging corruption involving Democrats. (The Daily Beast’s Anna Nemtsova wrote the OAN investigation features “some of Kyiv’s most dubious characters”).

Herring said over email that “One America News is seeking the truth regarding Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 Presidential election” and that “the best way to determine what happened in Ukraine is via interviews with first hand witnesses and a thorough review of the support documentation.” He suggested that “there is an effort to keep the ‘lid on the jar’ regarding corruption that traces back to the United States.”

“We appreciate the efforts by others to shed light on the facts, including first hand witnesses, other investigative reporters and media outlets, and politicians,” he added.

One prominent senator indicated Sunday that he’s interested in hearing about Giuliani’s Ukraine trip. On CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Lindsey Graham said, "Rudy, if you want to come and tell us what you found I'd be glad to talk to you.”

FILED UNDER: MEDIA, RUDY GIULIANI, UKRAINE, NEWS ON TRUMP IMPEACHMENT

==

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/biden-ukraine-recordings-oan/612454/

many lnx

Is OAN the Leading Edge of Russian Misinformation?

The Biden campaign says Trump’s favorite TV network is peddling the Kremlin’s lies.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE

JUNE 11, 2020

In what appears to be a signal of intensifying political warfare ahead of the November election, One America News Network, the Trump-supporting cable channel that has been promoting anti-Biden conspiracies for several months, says it has obtained several hours of secret recordings of then–Vice President Biden’s conversations with Ukrainian officials. If such recordings exist, they’re likely linked to pro-Russian interests in Ukraine and a Russian intelligence operation, two former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine and a former ambassador to Russia told me. The OAN employee who claims to have the tapes would not say what was on them, other than suggesting that they will be revelatory.

In the audio that has been released elsewhere so far, Biden is heard dangling the promise of financial aid to Ukraine if its government ousted a prosecutor who was seen as corrupt—which Biden has previously said publicly was his goal, as part of a push for widespread reforms. Conspiracists have alleged that this was intended to help his son Hunter escape charges of corruption, but an audit by Ukraine’s former top prosecutor released last week found no evidence of illegal activity by Hunter in his capacity as an energy-company board member.

[MORE STORIES

Donald Trump

Democracy Versus Kleptocracy

FRANKLIN FOER

The Press Is Embracing False Equivalence—Again

JAMES FALLOWS

Rudy Giuliani: ‘You Should Be Happy for Your Country That I Uncovered This’

ELAINA PLOTT]

What is most remarkable here is that none of this is particularly surprising. Russian interference in the 2016 election has been closely studied over the past four years, and America’s vulnerabilities have only worsened in that time. As my colleague Franklin Foer wrote recently, “Russia’s interference in 2016 might be remembered as the experimental prelude that foreshadowed the attack of 2020.” That OAN is now a player in such interference suggests an escalation that the Biden campaign has been bracing for.

Indeed, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul—who has recalled being secretly recorded himself, among other forms of harassment, when he was posted in Moscow—told me, "There’s never been a moment like this in American history.”

[Read Putin is well on his way to stealing the next election

That includes 2016. McFaul said what he’s seeing now reminds him of tactics the Kremlin has used against its domestic political opponents. “It’s not to convince you of a different point of view. It’s to convince you that there is no truth,” he said. “When it feels like nobody’s telling the truth and there is no truth, the reaction to that is despondency and demobilization.”

It’s hard not to feel some déjà vu here. In 2016, Russian intelligence agents hacked the emails of Democratic National Committee staffers and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and delivered them to WikiLeaks, as a way to get them into the American media. Some outlets learned a lesson from that episode, and have treated new Biden recordings out of Ukraine with care. Others have not. Andriy Derkach, who released the Biden tapes that have already come out, is a former member of a pro-Russian political party who graduated from a KGB-run academy in Moscow. OAN lends his efforts a veneer, however thin, of journalistic legitimacy.

The person now claiming to have more tapes is OAN’s Chanel Rion, the on-air personality who went with Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, on his December trip to Ukraine in part to find information on Biden to help Trump. Rion, who has become famous for her conspiracy-inflected questions at White House briefings, emailed the Biden campaign May 29 claiming that she was working on an “in-depth report” about recordings that appear to be of Biden speaking with Petro Poroshenko, then the president of Ukraine. “We have over five hours of these recordings (beyond what has been posted online by Nabu Leaks),” she wrote, referencing a Ukrainian website suspected of Russian links.

Derkach, a politician known as the “Ukrainian Putin,” has been a proponent of the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was really behind the interference in the 2016 election instead of Russia. And he has previously been eager to provide damaging material about Biden for Trump’s sake. Derkach released a batch of recordings three weeks ago, claiming that they had been made by Poroshenko and given to him by “investigative journalists.” (Poroshenko has said the audio is “fabricated.”) Most mainstream-media outlets have decided that the recordings that have emerged so far offer “little new insight into Biden’s actions in Ukraine,” as The Washington Post’s Carol Morello wrote after the recordings were first released.

Giuliani, reached by text, did not comment on suspicions that the recordings have ties to Russian interests or intelligence, or on whether he was involved in getting any of them to OAN.

Rion was until recently an illustrator. She has said she joined members of the Trump family in 2016 for the New Hampshire primary’s victory party; she has also tweeted a drawing of Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein with the hashtag #spiritcooking, which is often associated with the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. On her website, she describes herself as “a fierce foe of anything Clinton, of everything Obama, and as a total and unrelenting enemy of academic left-liberalism and political correctness anywhere.”

In March, she cited a “monitored source” on air who’d said that the coronavirus had been linked to a lab in North Carolina; that source turned out to be a person who’d tweeted at her. She has asked wild questions at White House briefings, including one about whether Trump would pardon Barack Obama for unspecified crimes, and another about whether Trump’s lawyers would like to depose Joe Scarborough, after Trump floated a baseless accusation that he’d murdered an aide.

Rion’s email, which the Biden campaign forwarded to me, suggests that OAN is “producing an in-depth report on these recordings for OAN's Special Investigates series.” In a phone call on Sunday, she told me that she now expects to acquire much more than the five hours of recordings she mentioned in her email. Rion said that Derkach was just one of the people who have been giving her material. She said she has verified, with the help of “a couple of sources on the ground,” and with sources in the U.S. as well, that the recordings have no ties to Russian intelligence or interests. She would not explain her verification process, saying, “I don't want to tip off anybody.”

It was once unusual for the public to gain access to top-secret government documents, let alone private conversations between the American vice president and a foreign leader. But as countries around the world increase their cyberwar capabilities and their willingness to interfere in one another’s domestic politics, and as the democratization of publishing allows for the rapid spread of misinformation, media leaks of hard-to-verify and potentially doctored documents and recordings of government officials are becoming commonplace.

“It is common practice for Russian intelligence to help put out information in skewed forms in Ukraine, and forensic experts have seen that this information is doctored,” said John Herbst, a former career Foreign Service officer who served as the American ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006. “The Kremlin is a master at this sort of practice, and the sources in Ukraine providing this sort of information are known to be well connected in Moscow.”

Herbst was one of seven former ambassadors to Ukraine who wrote an open letter to Ukrainians two weeks ago, prompted by the already-public recordings. They said they are “disheartened by efforts to involve Ukraine in America’s domestic politics as the 2020 US presidential election approaches.”

“This all just confirms what we knew,” said Steven Pifer, another former ambassador to Ukraine, who signed the letter.

David A. Graham: What happened in Ukraine?

Russia would love to “somehow inject Ukraine back into American politics,” Pifer said. “There will be people on the American side who play into it—OAN is one.”

The Biden campaign says OAN’s willingness to play along is exactly why the network received the recordings. “In 2016 and ever since, hostile foreign actors have perpetrated insidious efforts to disfigure and poison American democracy. Yesterday’s hacked emails are today’s bugged phones and deepfakes,” Andrew Bates, a campaign spokesperson, told me.

An OAN spokesperson, Krista McClelland, did not respond to a request for comment about the suggestion that the recordings have links to Russian intelligence. Nor did she respond to the Biden campaign’s charges.

Other countries are stepping up their own efforts to get involved in this year’s elections; Iran and China, for example, have been linked to attempts to hack Biden and Trump campaign computers. But Russia continues to lead the misinformation game. The day after Rion reached out to Biden’s team, Sputnik—the Kremlin-owned propaganda service, which American intelligence has accused of being involved in the 2016 misinformation efforts—ran an interview with a former Poroshenko aide who claimed that he was the one who’d made the recordings, and that he’d given them to his lawyers to give the Trump administration. “Because of the coronavirus,” he said,” they are waiting. But in September, closer to elections, they will begin to use them more.”

There’s no evidence to support this. But the Trump campaign doesn’t seem to have much interest in dampening ideas like it: The communications director, Tim Murtaugh, didn’t respond to multiple emails I sent about whether the campaign has more materials from Ukraine featuring Biden, and neither did White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley.

Election Day is in five months. And the people best positioned to knock down the Russian misinformation apparatus seem most interested instead in propping it up

escalator, activ meas

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/how-trump-is-once-again-colluding-with-russia/

no lnx twt

how  Trump is once again colluding with Russia

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly August 14, 2020

Almost two weeks ago, a story circulated that Portland protesters were burning Bibles and American flags. It spread via social media and was picked up by conservative outlets, such as the Washington Examiner. Of course, several Republican leaders joined the bandwagon.

tp kirk --> djt jr?]

ted cruz retweet: This is who they are.

Ian Miles Cheong

@stillgray

Left-wing activists bring a stack of Bibles to burn in front of the federal courthouse in Portland.  https://twitter.com/Shelldrayk/status/1289481822414413827/video/1

don jr

Now we move to the book burning phase. I’m pretty sure ANTIFA doesn’t actually stand for what they say it stands for. Maybe just remove the anti part of them name and it’s perfect.

tpkirk

BLM inc arsonists just burned a stack of Bibles in Portland

The activist media won’t report on this because it’s likely they support it

Our faith is under attack.

If you vote for Biden—you vote for Bible burnings

Two reporters at the New York Times, Matthew Rosenberg and Julian Barnes, decided to look into the story and found Vladimir Putin’s fingerprints all over it. As is often the case with effective propaganda, this story contains a kernel of truth. Apparently, some group was handing out Bibles to protesters that night and one of them was used to start a fire. An American flag was also burned. But a local paper covering the protests that night devoted just one sentence to that story in a lengthy piece about what happened.

The video news agency connected to Russia Today (RT) was regularly streaming a live feed of the Portland protests. They edited the clip of the fire and made it the focal point of their protest coverage that night. Then, RT did an entire story about it. Social media took it from there and the next thing you know, outlets like the Washington Examiner were picking it up. Here is how Rosenberg and Barnes summarized the process:

The Russian technique is a kind of information laundering, akin to money laundering. Stories originate with Russian-backed news sites, some of them directly connected to Moscow’s spy agencies, officials and experts said. They are then picked up by Americans on social media or in domestic news outlets, and their origins quickly become obscured. Often, by the time a story reaches most of its American audience, there is little to indicate that it was created to fuel grievances and deepen political divisions.

Following Trump’s press briefing on Wednesday, Hunter Walker tracked down another example of Russia’s attempt to get their propaganda in the news. He wrote about the question OAN reporter Chanel Rion asked the president.

Rion: In the last hour or so, if you googled antifa.com. it would take you straight to Joe Biden’s website, his official campaign website. Odd situation. We don’t know who’s behind that. But it raises an interesting leadership question. Should Joe Biden, the Democrat party, Kamala Harris– should they publicly denounce the Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization?

Trump: They should. I think they’re afraid to. It’s– in my book it’s virtually a part of their campaign, Antifa. The Democrats act like, gee, I don’t know exactly what that is.

Take a look at Portland. Take a look at any place you want to take a look at, and they’re all over the place. They were here. [DC?]

Basically Rion gave Trump the opportunity to claim that Antifa is part of the Biden campaign—which is, of course, a blatant lie.

Walker looked into what actually happened with the antifa.com website. Once again, as Pelosi said, “all roads lead to Putin.”

Records for “antifa.com” in the domain name database Whoisology.com show the site was registered in the Russian Federation from 2013 through last July. Starting last November, the site’s registration was moved to Panama, The website has always been anonymously registered and its owners could not be reached for comment.

Russia set up the antifa.com website and eventually redirected it to Biden’s campaign page, allowing the president to claim that the group was involved politically with Democrats. Of course, this raises the old question of whether this was all coordinated with the president or if Trump is simply taking advantage of Putin’s efforts. The same questions are raised about the role of OAN in these kinds of Russian propaganda efforts.

So there you have two examples of how Russia is currently interfering in the 2020 election to support the reelection of Donald Trump. One thing worth noting is that if these examples are reflective of their efforts, Vladimir Putin has calculated that his best bet is to inflame the so-called “culture wars,” something that has been the bedrock of the Republican strategy for decades. The Bible burning story was especially useful for the Christian nationalists who want to scare their followers into thinking that, as Trump has suggested, Joe Biden is against God and the Bible.

It is important to keep in mind that the only reason we know about these Russian efforts is because some reporters put in the time to track down the story. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who has seen what our intelligence services know about Russian interference, said that the 2020 efforts “make Moscow’s past interference and nefarious actions look like child’s play.” But the Trump administration is keeping that information from the public, while the attorney general hypes the antifa story and puts all of his energy into accusing the Obama administration of “spying” into the Trump campaign. That strikes me as the definition of collusion.

==

--==

Michael Savage likened Black Lives Matter to ISIS and Al Qaeda. Glenn Beck compared supporting Black Lives Matter to supporting Nazis in the 1930s.

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) criticized Black Lives Matter in an interview with OAN personality and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who has documented white supremacist ties.

==

OAN’s White House correspondent: QAnon is anonymous “for a very good reason” and “people need to respect that”

07/15/20 1:36 PM EDT

Trump official went on a QAnon show to recruit campaign volunteers

07/14/20 3:18 PM E

==

on youtube, taken down fast?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-boosting-network-oann-teased-a-poll-showing-him-winning-but-it-turned-out-to-be-a-complete-dud/

620 an

President Donald Trump smeared a 75-year-old Buffalo activist seriously injured by police, in a tweet based on a conspiracy theory spread by a Kremlin-linked broadcaster.

The president identified the protester, Martin Gugino, as an “ANTIFA provocateur,” a claim that has bounced around right-wing media circles and then broadcast on the rabidly pro-Trump One America News Network by Russian propagandist Kristian Rouz.

“A new report finds the latest tensions in the Buffalo Police Department could be the result of a false-flag provocation by far-left group Antifa,” Rouz reported for OANN.

The San Diego-based Rouz has been simultaneously working for OANN and the Kremlin-owned Sputnik news aggregator that played a role in Russia’s 2016 election interference, cited a report by The Conservative Treehouse.

“Gugino was attempting to capture the radio communications signature of Buffalo police officers,” claimed the right-wing news blog. “CTH noted what he was attempting on Thursday night as soon as the now viral video was being used by media to sell a police brutality narrative. [Thread Here] Today, a more clear video has emerged that shows exactly what he was attempting.”

The website claims a slow-motion video shows Gugino was attempting to hack into the police radio signal by waving his cell phone across the officer’s communications belt.

“The practice, known as ‘skimming,’ is an old trick used by Antifa to locate police officers and plan violent activities bypassing the police response,” Rouz reported for OANN. “In addition, the 75-year-old, who’s been referred to as an agitator, was supposedly using the technology to black out police communications. That, however, didn’t quite work, and many Buffalo police officers support their embattled colleagues.”

Two Buffalo police officers — Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe — were charged with assault in the incident, and Gugino remains hospitalized in stable condition after bleeding from his head....matt geertz twt]

==

ref

11/19

https://www.thedailybeast.com/oan-trumps-new-favorite-channel-employs-kremlin-paid-journalist

no lnx pix

Trump’s New Favorite Channel Employs Kremlin-Paid Journalist

MOONLIGHTING

Kristian Rouz appears on segments for One America News Network—ironic given he is working for a Russian outlet fingered in the 2016 election attack.

Kevin Poulsen

Sr. National Security Correspondent

Updated Nov. 02, 2019 2:02AM ET / Published Jul. 22, 2019 4:41AM ET

EXCLUSIVE

If the stories broadcast by the Trump-endorsed One America News Network sometimes look like outtakes from a Kremlin trolling operation, there may be a reason. One of the on-air reporters at the 24-hour network is a Russian national on the payroll of the Kremlin’s official propaganda outlet, Sputnik.

Kristian Brunovich Rouz, originally from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, has been living in San Diego, where OAN is based, since August 2017, reporting on U.S. politics for the 24-hour news channel. For all of that time, he’s been simultaneously writing for Sputnik, a Kremlin-owned news wire that played a role in Russia’s 2016 election-interference operation, according to an assessment by the U.S. intelligence community.

Trump’s New Favorite Network Embraces Russian Propaganda

OF COURSE

Kevin Poulsen

Rouz’s on-air reports for OAN include a wholly fabricated 2017 segment claiming Hillary Clinton is secretly bankrolling antifa through her political action committee. Clinton, Rouz claimed falsely, gave antifa protesters $800,000 that “went toward things like bricks, hammers, bats, and chains.”

Other smears target billionaire financier George Soros, a longtime Kremlin bête noire. In one segment, Rouz amplified a thoroughly debunked claim that Soros collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, when the Jewish philanthropist was 14 years old. Another Rouz story accused Soros of secretly funding migrant caravans.

Kremlin propaganda sometimes sneaks into Rouz’s segments on unrelated matters, dropped in as offhand background information. A segment on the Syrian rescue workers known as the White Helmets references “allegations of the White Helmets’ involvement in military activities, executions, and numerous war atrocities,” but doesn’t disclose that those “allegations” were hoaxes that originated with Vladimir Putin and his proxies.

“This completes the merger between Russian state-sponsored propaganda and American conservative media.”

— Clint Watts

In another report, Rouz cast Clinton’s criticism of Brexit as an extension of her “grievous insults and fake narratives against Russia”—an assertion that makes sense only in the context of Rouz’s multiple reports claiming Russia was framed for hacking Democrats.

In all of Rouz’s OAN segments reviewed by The Daily Beast, he is introduced as a “One America correspondent,” with no disclosure of his work for Russia’s state-owned media, where he continues to file stories daily, primarily on economic news.

“This completes the merger between Russian state-sponsored propaganda and American conservative media,” said former FBI agent Clint Watts, a research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “We used to think of it as ‘They just have the same views’ or ‘They use the same story leads.’ But now they have the same personnel.”

Rouz didn’t respond to email and telephone inquiries for this story. Reached by email, OAN President Charles Herring invited The Daily Beast to submit written questions about the network’s arrangement with Rouz. But after receiving the questions, Herring cut off contact.

Online records show Rouz graduated from Novosibirsk State University in 2010 and went on to earn a master’s degree in international relations at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. His byline first appears on Sputnik in December 2014.

A few months later, he emigrated to the U.S., settling in Los Angeles in the spring of 2015, where he played guitar for an indie rock band called White Tar.

“Oh shit, it's fucking Kristian! That's my ex-guitarist…”

— Jov Paradice

A former bandmate, whose stage name is Jov Paradice, told The Daily Beast that Rouz was secretive about his day job, except to say that he wrote articles about economics for a Russian company. In August 2016, Rouz worked for the Los Angeles PR firm the Hoyt Organization, according to a since-deleted tweet by the firm announcing his hire. He appears in an October 2016 photo on Hoyt’s Instagram feed, but isn’t readily apparent in subsequent photos. Hoyt didn’t respond to repeated email and telephone inquiries from The Daily Beast.

Trump Pushed Enquirer to Probe Scarborough ‘Murder’ Rumor

Paradice said he and Rouz frequently clashed over their differing world views.

“We kind of had a thing musically, but we were total opposites,” said Paradice. “When Trump was getting elected, he went into full sports coat mode. He had an indie style before—the whole blurred-line-of-sexuality thing—then he was wearing red ties and a suit. I said, ‘I’m not getting on the stage with Trump.’”

In August 2017, Rouz said he was leaving the band to accept a job offer in San Diego, Paradice recalls. It was only recently that Paradice discovered what that job was, when a Facebook friend posted a One America video purporting to document a link between antifa and ISIS terrorists.

“I’m thinking, there’s something familiar here, and then I go, ‘Oh shit, it’s fucking Kristian!’” said Paradice. “That’s my ex-guitarist… His bullshit propaganda is good enough now that they gave him a tiny bit of a platform.”

Rouz joined OAN at a time when his Russian employer was coming under heightened scrutiny over its role in Putin’s election interference, and its efforts to expand its American influence.

The Hell of Working at Trump’s New Favorite Network

CHANNEL ZERO

Kevin Poulsen

In July 2017, Sputnik contracted with a struggling Washington, D.C.-area radio station to begin broadcasting Sputnik content 24 hours a day. Until then, the station played bluegrass music.

The move came just months after a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment named Sputnik, and its sister television outlet RT America, as players in Putin’s election-interference campaign. By September, the FBI was investigating Sputnik for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The next month, Twitter announced it would no longer accept ads from Sputnik or RT.

The FARA issue was resolved in November 2017, when Sputnik formally registered with the Justice Department as an agent of a foreign power.

One America pushes some of the same false stories as Sputnik and RT, but with none of the legal entanglements.

Founded and helmed by 77-year-old circuit-board millionaire Robert Herring Sr., OAN launched in 2013 as an answer to the chatty, opinionated content of mainstream cable-news channels—and a place for viewers too conservative for Fox News. Under Herring’s direction, the network embraced Trumpism enthusiastically, starting in 2016.

Over time, the network became increasingly dedicated to conspiracy theories and fake news, and became overtly supportive of Russia’s global agenda. When Rouz joined, the network had recently shed a number of anchors and other staffers who’d bristled at the change.

Though it’s available in only a handful of cable markets, OAN’s viewership includes some influential figures, including the president of the United States. According to Media Matters, Trump has fallen for at least two fake stories after seeing them on OAN.

Kevin Poulsen

Sr. National Security Correspondent

@kpoulsen

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.

rouz: 57? resigned in protest raising fears of public safety, ppl cheered 2 offiers arrested? skimming o get cop location, jam frequency (he waves cell phone over cop crotch?)

https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/heres-the-outrageous-oan-segment-that-led-trump-to-falsely-smear-a-75-year-old-protestor-as-an-antifa-provocateur/

also 70 yr old head wound via oann;

no lnx

here’s the outrageous OAN segment that led Trump to falsely smear a 75-year-old protestor as an ‘Antifa provocateur’

Image via Screengrab.

Written by Alex Henderson June 9, 2020

Buffalo police have been widely criticized for a disturbing incident in which a 75-year-old George Floyd protestor, Martin Gugino, was violently shoved to the ground. And now — based on reporting by the right-wing cable news outlet One America News President Donald Trump — is smearing the man as an “Antifa provocateur.”

OANN or OAN prides itself on being more pro-Trump than Fox News, which Trump has criticized at times for not being consistently supportive of him. Here’s the segment the network aired on Gugino.

Eugene Daniels

@EugeneDaniels2

Here's that OANN report that led to the president's tweet.

Embedded video

20

6:16 AM - Jun 9, 2020

Twitter Ads info and privacy

29 people are talking about this

Trump tweeted, “Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?”

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN  I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

76.7K

5:34 AM - Jun 9, 2020

Twitter Ads info and privacy

102K people are talking about this

Gugino is still hospitalized because of the injuries he suffered. Two Buffalo police officers, Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe, have been charged with assault.

==

mma 520 morn joe

https://www.mediamatters.org/one-america-news-network/during-white-house-briefing-oan-correspondent-suggests-trump-lawyers

==

is fox "straight news" why trump needs oann?

5/20  wallace

fox News host masterfully debunks Trump’s baseless claims about mail-in voting

Alex Henderson

This week, President Donald Trump doubled down on his rhetoric opposing voting by mail — insisting that the practice encourage voter fraud, even while he claims he personally should be…

==

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_America_News_Network

5/20

One America News Network (OANN), also known as One America News (OAN), is a conservative,[1][2][3] far-right[][2][4][5][6][7] news and opinion channel owned by Herring Networks, Inc., launched on July 4, 2013.[2][8][9][10][11] The network is headquartered in San Diego, California, and operates news bureaus in Washington, D.C.[12] and New York City.

The channel targets a conservative and right-of-center audience.[13] Its prime time political talk shows have a conservative perspective,[14][15][16] and the channel regularly features pro-Donald Trump stories.[14][17] The channel described itself as one of the "greatest supporters" of Trump.[18] Trump has repeatedly promoted the network.[5] The channel has been noted for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories.[5][15][19]

1 History

2 Programming

3 Content

3.1 Pro-Trump content

3.2 Murder of Seth Rich conspiracy theories

3.3 Roy Moore sexual misconduct report controversy

3.4 Conspiracy theory about David Hogg

3.5 Syria chemical attack

3.6 Hiring of Jack Posobiec

3.7 False story about Bible ban

3.8 Unsubstantiated claims about Ammar Campa-Najjar

3.9 Interview subject with a fake name

3.10 Russia

3.11 Fabricated story about Hillary Clinton funding Antifa

3.12 George Soros smears

3.13 Donald Trump wiretapping conspiracy theories

3.14 Coronavirus outbreak conspiracy theories

4 Reception

5 Ratings

6 See also

7 References

8 External links

History

OAN was announced on March 14, 2013 by Herring Networks, Inc., a family-owned national video programming company, which also owns sister channel AWE. The OAN channel originally debuted in partnership with The Washington Times.[12] On television, the network predominantly uses the acronym "OAN", whereas on Twitter it is more frequently known as "OANN". The network's web URL domain is at "OANN.com" but the site banner reads "OAN".[20]

The channel was launched with the intention of serving a conservative audience. OAN President Charles Herring told the Conservative Political Action Conference: "Fox News has done a great job serving the center-right and independent audiences... But those who consider themselves liberal have a half-dozen or more choices on TV each day..."[21] Herring also emphasized the network's separation of news from opinion content. He said that straight news would be reported throughout the day, with limited opinion and commentary on evening talk shows, including The Daily Ledger, hosted by Graham Ledger, and The Tipping Point, hosted by Liz Wheeler.[citation needed]

Promotions for the channel in 2013 touted the network's lack of commentary and focus on straight news reporting.[13]

In July 2014, OAN relocated its news and production studios, moving from The Washington Times building to a new location at 101 Constitution Avenue NW, near the United States Capitol. This marked the end of OAN's relationship with The Washington Times, which had provided news and analysis.[citation needed]

In June 2019, OAN said that it reached 35 million homes.[10] Its website lists availability via DirecTV, Verizon Fios, AT&T U-verse, Prism TV, and other distributors.[22] At the time, OAN had approximately 150 staff.[10]

At the start of 2020, it was reported that Trump allies were looking into purchasing OAN.[3]

Programming

In August 2014, OAN launched the show On Point with Tomi Lahren. Many clips from the program went viral, and by 2015, Lahren had gained widespread attention for her commentaries. On August 19, 2015, Lahren aired her final show at OAN.[23][24] On the week of August 24, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin guest hosted a program on the network.[25][26]

In 2019, the channel aired the Canadian television film Claws of the Red Dragon, which had signed Steve Bannon as its American distributor.[27]

Content

OAN is known for its pro-Trump content, promotion of conspiracy theories, and criticisms of the mainstream media.[10] OANN has described itself as one of the "greatest supporters" of Trump.[18]

Pro-Trump content

Further information: Veracity of statements by Donald Trump

OAN is pro-Trump.[14][28][29][30][10] Robert Herring, Sr., founder and CEO of the network, has ordered producers to promote pro-Trump stories, anti-Clinton stories, and anti-abortion stories, and to minimize stories about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.[citation needed]

During the 2016 presidential campaign, the channel ran a special titled "Betrayal at Benghazi: The Cost of Hillary Clinton’s Dereliction and Greed." Herring, the owner of the channel, sent his producers a report that falsely claimed that Hillary Clinton had a brain tumor, and asked them to check up on it. He also shared a report with producers claiming that Planned Parenthood had promoted abortion, and ordered them to minimize coverage of Pope Francis's US visit, due to the Pope's calls for action on global warming (see Laudato si'). Herring also repeatedly ordered his producers not to cover stories pertaining to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.[14]

According to former and current employees at the channel, as well as internal e-mails, by July 2017 the executives of the channel had directed the channel to "scuttle stories about police shootings, encourage antiabortion stories, minimize coverage of Russian aggression, and steer away from the new president’s troubles."[14]

In October 2017, the channel claimed without evidence that a "report" had been published which showed "U.K. Crime Rises 13% Annually Amid Spread of Radical Islamic Terror".[31] President Trump later repeated this falsehood, suggesting that he learned of it from OAN.[15][32]

In June 2017, OAN was granted a permanent seat in the White House's James Brady briefing room.[33] The network's Chief White House Correspondent, Trey Yingst, was one of the top five most called-upon reporters covering the Trump Administration.[34] OAN has been repeatedly called on by President Trump during Presidential press conferences, including in February 2017 when Yingst asked the President about his campaign's contacts with the Russian government.[35] Also in February 2017, OAN was invited to a network lunch with President Trump.[36] In August 2017, President Trump praised OAN, saying: "It's a great network." In response, OAN CEO Robert Herring said that OAN considers itself a tough but fair presence in the White House press corps.[37]

OAN supported the Trump administration's revoking of CNN reporter Jim Acosta's press credentials; most major media outlets, including the conservative Fox News, opposed this decision. In a statement, Robert Herring attacked Fox News, saying he "can't believe Fox is on the other side."[38][39][40]

OAN broadcasts every Trump speech uninterrupted.[10]

Murder of Seth Rich conspiracy theories

OANN promoted conspiracy theories about the murder of Seth Rich.[15]

Roy Moore sexual misconduct report controversy

Further information: Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations

After The Washington Post reported allegations that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore had made unwanted sexual advances toward teenagers when he was in his thirties, OAN "became a source of both positive coverage and stories that could cast doubt on his accusers."[41] In November 2017, OAN aired a segment citing a false rumor by an anonymous Twitter account that The Washington Post had offered $1,000 to Roy Moore's accusers.[42][43][44] OAN described the tweet as a "report" and described the tweeter as a "former Secret Service agent and Navy veteran".[42][43] The Twitter source had a history of tweeting falsehoods and conspiracy theories; the Twitter account had also made repeated and inconsistent lies about its identity, including appropriating the identity of a Navy serviceman who died in 2007.[43] After it was revealed that the story was a hoax, OAN did not retract its report.[42]

During his Senate campaign, Roy Moore cited OAN when he defended himself against the accusations,[45] including an OAN story that alleged his "Accusers Have Ties to Drug Dealers & Washington Post".[45][46][47]

During the night of the Alabama Senate election, OANN announced Moore had swept the election "by a large margin" when, in actuality, Moore had lost the race.[48] In its announcement, the network cited "unofficial polling", and the news anchor extended OAN CEO Robert Herring's congratulations to Moore on having run a "fine campaign."[48] OAN's website also published an erroneous article claiming Moore had won "despite attacks from Democrats about unverified allegations."[48] During election night, OAN also reported "a number of people have been caught trying to sneak into voting booths and vote illegally"; however, Alabama Secretary of State's office said it had no credible reports of voter fraud.[49]

Conspiracy theory about David Hogg

Further information: Stoneman Douglas High School shooting § Conspiracy theories, disinformation, and harassment

In February 2018, one of the hosts on OAN tweeted a conspiracy theory that a 17-year-old survivor in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, David Hogg, had been coached to speak against Trump by, and was "running cover" for, his retired FBI agent father.[50][51] Donald Trump Jr. "liked" the OAN host's tweet.[51] The younger Hogg responded, describing the conspiracy theory to Buzzfeed News as "immature, rude, and inhuman."[52]

Syria chemical attack

In April 2018, while on an al-Assad regime-led tour of the area of the Douma chemical attack, an OAN correspondent claimed there was no evidence that a chemical attack had occurred.[53] The correspondent said, "Not one of the people that I spoke to in that neighborhood said that they had seen anything or heard anything about a chemical attack on that day" and that residents "loved Bashar al-Assad."[53]

In May 2019, OAN published a report claiming the White Helmets had admitted to staging fake chemical weapons attacks, which were intended to put blame on the Assad regime. OAN referred to the humanitarian organization, which is partly funded by the US State Department, as "terrorist-linked". The Daily Beast characterized this story as a "smear" that could be traced directly as Russian disinformation.[29]

Hiring of Jack Posobiec

As of 2018, far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec worked for OANN as a political correspondent.[54] Posobiec was a prominent proponent of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and murder of Seth Rich conspiracy theories.[10][30][55]

False story about Bible ban

In April 2018, OAN ran a segment falsely claiming that a California bill would ban the sale of Bibles.[56] Within 24 hours, the OAN video was viewed 2.4 million times on Facebook.[56] Snopes determined that this claim was a misrepresentation, noting the bill actually targeted gay conversion therapy.[56]

Unsubstantiated claims about Ammar Campa-Najjar

During the mid-term campaign for the November 2018 U.S. elections, OAN ran a segment claiming that Democratic congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar's "father praised the deaths of the Israelis, saying they deserved to die." The Washington Post fact-checker noted that there is no attribution to this statement in the OAN segment. An OANN commentator also claimed that groups connected to the Muslim Brotherhood donated to Campa-Najjar's campaign and that the FEC website showed this.The Washington Post fact-checker said it "couldn’t find evidence of this after searching Campa-Najjar’s filings with the Federal Election Commission." Nevertheless, the OAN segment was used in attack ads by Campa-Najjar's Republican opponent Duncan Hunter to support the false suggestion that Campa-Najjar was tied to terrorism.[57]

Interview subject with a fake name

In July 2019, the network interviewed a pro-Trump activist about allegations of anti-conservative bias on Reddit. OANN identified the man as Dennis F. Charles and said he was a "a conservative social media analyst."[30] However, that was not his name and OANN did not disclose that he was using a pseudonym.[30]

Russia

Further information: Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019) and Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

OAN is known for downplaying threats posed to the United States by Russia. According to a former OAN producer, on his first day at OAN he was told, "Yeah, we like Russia here."[10][58] One of OAN's reporters, Kristian Brunovich Rouz, simultaneously works for the Russian propaganda outlet and news agency Sputnik, which is state-owned; when Rouz runs segments on OAN that relate to Russia, OAN does not disclose that he also works for Sputnik.[17]

In September 2019, OAN parent Herring Networks filed suit in federal court in San Diego, California against MSNBC host Rachel Maddow for $10 million after Maddow said the network "literally [is] paid Russian propaganda" on her July 22, 2019 program. Maddow had referenced a Daily Beast story identifying Rouz as also working for Sputnik. Also named in the suit were Comcast, MSNBC and NBCUniversal Media.[59] A hearing on a motion to strike brought by Maddow was originally scheduled for March 2020, but due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic the arguments were moved to May 2020 by Judge Cynthia Bashant.[60]

Fabricated story about Hillary Clinton funding Antifa

OANN ran a wholly fabricated story alleging that Hillary Clinton's political action committee secretly gave $800,000 to Antifa.[17]

George Soros smears

OANN has run stories falsely claiming that George Soros, a Jewish-Hungarian philanthropist, collaborated with the Nazis when he was a 14-year-old.[17] The network has also accused Soros of funding migrant caravans to the United States.[17]

During a report from Ukraine with Rudy Giuliani in December 2019, the OANN correspondent Chanel Rion claimed without evidence that Soros had shown up at the Kyiv airport with "human Dobermans in little black Mercedes" to find them. The claim was ridiculed in Ukrainian and American media.[61][62][63] Soros was not known to have visited Ukraine since 2016.[62]

Giuliani has promoted conspiracy theories related to the Trump–Ukraine scandal on OANN.[64][65][66]

Donald Trump wiretapping conspiracy theories

On January 12, 2020, an OANN broadcast promoted debunked conspiracy theories alleging illegal wiretapping of Donald Trump.[67]

Coronavirus outbreak conspiracy theories

Further information: Misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic

In March 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, the OANN chief White House correspondent Chanel Rion promoted a conspiracy theory that the virus originated in a North Carolina lab, citing information from a "citizen investigator and a monitored source amongst a certain set of the DC intelligence community" who was actually a Twitter conspiracy theorist. As she cited this individual during a televised report from the White House grounds, an image was displayed of actor Keir Dullea in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. She also asserted that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was the White House's leading expert on infectious diseases, had funded the creation of the coronavirus.[68][69] Rion later claimed without evidence that other mainstream media outlets were parroting Communist Party of China propaganda.[70] During a press conference with Trump, she asked him whether it was "racist" to use the term "Chinese food" and continued:

major left-wing news media—even in this room—have teamed up with Chinese Communist Party narratives and they’re claiming you’re racist for making these claims about 'Chinese virus.' Is it alarming that major media players, just to oppose you, are consistently siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals and Latin gangs and cartels? And they work right here at the White House with direct access to you and your team?[68][71][72]

Rion previously worked as a political cartoonist, and had among other things promoted murder of Seth Rich conspiracy theories and written an anti-feminist children's book.[68][73] She without evidence claimed that former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe were involved in an affair.[74] OANN later retracted the story.[74]

Rion was expelled from the White House Correspondents Association and her formal seat was removed for flagrantly violating newly implemented social distancing rules in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.[5]

[[1021 update

Russia

Further information: Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019) and Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

OANN is known for downplaying threats posed to the United States by Russia. According to a former OANN producer, on his first day at OANN he was told, "Yeah, we like Russia here."[25][106] One of OANN's reporters, Kristian Brunovich Rouz, simultaneously works for the Russian propaganda outlet and news agency Sputnik, which is state-owned; when Rouz runs favorable segments on OANN that relate to Russia, OANN does not disclose that he also works for Sputnik.[33][107][108] Rouz compiled a wholly fabricated story that OANN ran in 2017, which alleged that Hillary Clinton's political action committee secretly gave $800,000 to "antifa."[33][109] In May 2020, Rouz created a segment for OANN in which he claimed "mounting evidence of a globalist conspiracy" involving the Clintons, Soros, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, and the Chinese government. No evidence exists for any of this.[109]

In September 2019, OANN parent Herring Networks sued MSNBC host Rachel Maddow (as well as Comcast, MSNBC and NBCUniversal Media) for $10 million in federal court, after Maddow said the network "literally [is] paid Russian propaganda" on her July 22, 2019 program (when she referred to a Daily Beast article identifying Rouz as working for Sputnik).[110] The court dismissed the suit, finding the claim was not defamation, but that a "reasonable viewer" would recognize it as a reasonable summation of the article published by The Daily Beast.[111][112] In February 2021, Herring Networks was ordered to pay Maddow and MSNBC $250,000 legal fees in an anti-SLAPP ruling. OANN's appeal of the ruling was denied by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2021. The panel decided that Maddow's statement was "an obvious exaggeration, cushioned within an undisputed news story", and thus not defamation.[113]

False claims about George Soros

OANN has run stories falsely claiming that George Soros, a Hungarian-born American philanthropist, collaborated with the Nazis when he was a 14-year-old.[33] The network has also accused Soros of funding migrant caravans to the United States.[33]

During a report from Ukraine with Rudy Giuliani, in December 2019, OANN correspondent Chanel Rion claimed without evidence that Soros had shown up at the Kyiv airport with "human Dobermans in little black Mercedes" to find them. The claim was ridiculed in Ukrainian and American media.[114][115][116] Soros was not known to have visited Ukraine since 2016.[115]

COVID-19 pandemic conspiracy theories

Further information: COVID-19 misinformation

In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the OANN chief White House correspondent Chanel Rion promoted a conspiracy theory that the virus originated in a North Carolina lab, citing information from a "citizen investigator and a monitored source amongst a certain set of the DC intelligence community"[117] who was actually a Twitter conspiracy theorist.[118] As she described this individual during a televised report from the White House grounds, an image was displayed of actor Keir Dullea in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. She also asserted that Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases, had funded the creation of COVID-19.[119][120] Rion later claimed without evidence that other mainstream media outlets were parroting Communist Party of China propaganda.[121] During a press conference with Trump, she asked him whether it was "racist" to use the term "Chinese food"; accused "major left-wing news media" of "consistently siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals and Latin gangs and cartels" as well as "Chinese Communist Party narratives"; and asked the president whether it was "alarming" that media "work right here at the White House with direct access to you and your team?"[119][122][123]

Rion previously worked as a political cartoonist, promoted murder of Seth Rich conspiracy theories, and written an anti-feminist children's book; Rion also praised a book by a Holocaust denier.[119][124] She claimed without evidence that former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe were involved in an affair.[125] OANN later retracted the story.[125]

In April 2020, Rion was expelled from the White House Correspondents' Association and her formal seat was removed for flagrantly violating newly implemented social distancing rules in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.[4] Despite this, Rion has boasted she was personally invited to attend by the Trump White House's press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, a day after the ban.[126]

In May 2020, OANN host Liz Wheeler claimed without evidence that "mainstream media pretended there was a deadly surge in COVID cases" after the 2020 Wisconsin Spring election. PolitiFact rated the claim "Pants on Fire", having found that there were no references to a "surge" in their review of state and national articles about the election, and that reports had accurately listed the number of COVID-19 cases potentially related to the election.[127]

In November 2020, YouTube suspended OANN's channel's ability to upload videos for one week and demonetized its channel for violating YouTube's policy against promoting COVID-19 misinformation, after OANN uploaded a video advertising a fake cure for COVID-19.[42] OANN responded that "The video was 'unlisted' on YouTube for review by internal OAN staff only", accused YouTube of a First Amendment violation, and stated that the video was republished on the OANN website.[128]

George Floyd protests

Main article: George Floyd protests

In June 2020, during protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, OANN reporter Jack Posobiec falsely claimed that there were pipe bombs planted at the Korean War Memorial in Washington D.C., and that "federal assets [were] in pursuit". There were no pipe bombs, nor is there any evidence that any "federal assets" pursued it.[129]

Buffalo police shoving incident

Main article: Buffalo police shoving incident

In June 2020, OANN claimed, without evidence, that an elderly protester who had been seriously injured by police "was attempting to capture the radio communications signature of Buffalo police officers" and was linked to the antifa movement.[108][102] Referencing OANN's unfounded conspiracy theory, Trump later tweeted that the protester "could be an ANTIFA provocateur."[102][130][131] OANN's Kristian Rouz provided no evidence for these claims, referring only to The Conservative Treehouse, an anonymously written right-wing blog.[132][133] That afternoon, Herring Sr. tweeted to Trump, "we won't let you down as your source for credible news!"[108] On June 13, protesters in San Diego, California gathered outside OANN headquarters,[134] where Herring Sr. challenged the crowd to prove the story was false.[135]

2020 US presidential election

See also: Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election

In the months after the 2020 United States presidential election, OANN extensively amplified false claims of election fraud and promoted conspiracy theories related to the election.[43][61] Five days after the Associated Press had called the election for Joe Biden, OANN continued to insist that Donald Trump had won,[136] and OANN continued to refer to Trump as "President Trump" (while referring to Biden as simply "Biden" or "Joe Biden") for months after the January 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden as President.[61] It has also been revealed that Christina Bobb, an OANN news anchor, worked in private with the legal team of Donald Trump to try to overturn the election results.[137]

OANN saw growth in its audience as a result of its election coverage. It was boosted in particular by Donald Trump, who expressed disapproval of Fox News' reporting on the presidential election and encouraged his supporters to instead watch OANN or Newsmax TV, another conservative channel promoting election falsehoods.[138][139][140]

Reuters reported in October 2021 that on the day of the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, an OANN news director emailed staff: "Please DO NOT say ‘Trump Supporters Storm Capitol...’ Simply call them demonstrators or protestors...DO NOT CALL IT A RIOT!!!" The next day, Herring emailed news producers: "We want to report all the things Antifa did yesterday. I don’t think it was Trump people but lets investigate." The FBI has not found evidence of antifa involvement.[30]

Dominion Voting Systems

Sidney Powell

OANN was a major promoter of the conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems had manipulated vote totals to ensure the victory of Democratic candidate Joe Biden.[43][141] OANN spent months alleging manipulation by Dominion,[142] advanced claims that Dominion employees had colluded with Antifa activists,[143][144] aired a fictitious map allegedly seized by the US Army from election servers in Germany showing Donald Trump had received 410 electoral votes,[145] and hosted interviews with Trump allies claiming that Dominion was part of an international communist conspiracy.[146] Some of these claims were later amplified by Donald Trump, including a false assertion made on OANN that millions of votes for Trump were switched to votes for Joe Biden (a claim that originated on TheDonald.win, a pro-Trump website);[147][148][149] Trump also tweeted out an OANN segment in which Ron Watkins, a far-right conspiracy theorist and administrator of 8chan (the website famous for its close connection to the QAnon conspiracy theory), was falsely characterized as an expert on election issues as he promoted conspiracy theories about Dominion.[150][151]

OANN later removed all references to Dominion and Smartmatic, another company falsely accused of voter fraud, from its website without issuing public retractions after Dominion filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Sidney Powell.[152][153] However, on February 5, 2021, OANN aired Absolute Proof, a film produced by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell that contained false claims and conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the election. Before the program, OANN showed a lengthy disclaimer asserting that the claims were Lindell's alone, but that the 2020 election results "remain disputed and questioned by millions of Americans." The disclaimer was seen as an attempt to avoid litigation from Dominion and Smartmatic.[154][155]

On August 10, 2021, Dominion sued OANN for "knowingly and continuously" spreading false election fraud narratives,[45] for a minimum of $1.6 billion.[156]

Russian disinformation

The Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, and Mass Murder. In March 2021, the United States intelligence community released an analysis which found that proxies of Russian intelligence "made contact with established US media figures and helped produce a documentary that aired on a US television network in late January 2020" as part of a broad effort to promote and launder misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration."[157][158]

Promotion of executions

In June 2021, OANN personality Pearson Sharp falsely stated in an on-air monologue that "the simple facts point to massive and widespread problems with voting integrity" and "there have been numerous indications that foreign governments including China and Pakistan, meddled in our election to install Joe Biden as president," continuing:

What are the consequences for traitors who meddled with our sacred democratic process and tried to steal power by taking away the voices of the American people? What happens to them? Well, in the past, America had a very good solution for dealing with such traitors: Execution...The bottom line is that no one is above the law. And let this be a warning to anyone who thinks they are. The consequences are clear. And those responsible will be brought to justice for their role in undermining America's democracy.

Followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory shared video of the monologue, which buttressed their belief that a "storm" was coming in which Satan-worshiping pedophiles who oppose Trump would be rounded up and executed.[159][160]

Doxing and harassment of New York Times journalist

On March 18, 2021, OANN aired a segment which contained the phone number of New York Times reporter Rachel Abrams, who they claimed was "fishing for information" from disgruntled OANN employees for a "hit piece" and called on viewers to "stand up to intimidation by the left" by contacting Abrams. OANN also posted a tweet with the number on its Twitter account, which was deleted after more than 6 hours by Twitter for violating its rules on personal and private information.[161][162] On April 18, 2021, Abrams published an article in The New York Times, which cited interviews with current and former OANN employees stating that the channel had broadcast reports they considered to be "misleading, inaccurate or untrue", and that some employees were hoping the channel would be sued by Dominion Voting Systems.[61] Marty Golingan, one of the employees who was interviewed, was fired by OANN after the article was published.[163]

Reception... end update]]

Reception

In March 2015, University of Southern California media professor Marty Kaplan praised the network for its focus on what he viewed as impartial news reporting, writing in The Huffington Post, "Ten minutes of OAN tells me eight stories; 10 minutes of Fox or MSNBC tells me one story, to make me mad," while commenting that OAN's opinion segments were "as delusional and incendiary as anything on conservative talk radio or Fox."[75] Don Kaplan of the New York Daily News echoed similar sentiments, writing in December 2016 that, "it's by far one of the most fair news outlets around, serving up a daily diet of ad-free, non-ideological, nonstop news—without smirking, snarky anchors or much fanfare" while stating that its opinion segments "skew hard to the right."[76]

In July 2017, Marc Fisher wrote in The Washington Post that the network was "a reliably sympathetic voice of the [Trump] administration’s goals and actions".[77] In July 2018, Media Matters for America criticized OAN host Liz Wheeler for advancing conspiracy theories relating to the Planned Parenthood 2015 undercover videos controversy and other abortion topics and tying tangentially related news stories to the "so-called liberal hypocrisy on abortion."[78] In April 2020, John Oliver ran a segment of Last Week Tonight criticizing OAN's far-right bias and promotion of unfounded conspiracy theories, stating: "it is more important than ever to be on the lookout for OAN's bullshit and to make sure no one that you know is falling for it either."[79]

Ratings

OAN does not subscribe to Nielsen ratings, citing the rating companies' high price. In March 2019, OAN cited Comscore set-top-box viewership data to claim it was the "fourth-rated cable news network" that month.[80]

See also

Cyberwarfare by Russia

List of conspiracy theories

Oleksandr Onyshchenko

Categories: 2013 establishments in California24-hour television news channels in the United StatesAmerican companies established in 2013American television networksCompanies based in San DiegoConservative media in the United StatesEnglish-language television stations in the United StatesFar-right politics in the United StatesTelevision channels and stations established in 2013Conspiracist media