Tag Archives: Media

Is the Media propagandizing the possibility of a Civil War?

Trump vs Harris

Important Takeaways:

  • One in four Americans fear a civil war could break out following the presidential election, a new poll has found.
  • A YouGov poll of 1,266 registered voters has found that 84 percent of citizens believe America is more divided today than ten years ago.
  • Of the bipartisan voters surveyed for The Times newspaper in the UK, 27 percent say they fear violence is ‘very or somewhat likely’ after ballots are cast for the next President in 11 days.
  • Twelve percent of respondents claimed to know someone who ‘might take up arms’ if they believed Donald Trump is ‘cheated’ of an election victory. Five percent said they knew someone who would do the same for Kamala Harris.
  • The new poll follows a bombshell prediction of a psychological catastrophe across the country if Trump beats Harris.
  • Voters believe that the upcoming bid for the White House is ‘very likely’ (6 percent) or ‘somewhat likely’ (21 percent) to cause a second civil war.
  • [Dr. Ben Carson] We need to understand that we are not each other’s’ enemies in this country. And it is only the political class that derives its power by creating friction. It is only the media that derives its importance by creating friction… that uses every little thing to create this chasm between people. This is not who we are.

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Media sharpening their knives after Trump wins Iowa primary

Yuval-Harari

Important Takeaways:

  • WEF globalist Yuval Harari hints that Trump will get elected, but then what?
  • World Economic Forum adviser and globalist mouthpiece Yuval Harari has come out with some very interesting comments about Donald Trump.
  • Harari says he believes it is “very likely” that Trump will be elected in November and that such an occurrence would be the “death blow” to globalism.
  • Now, a mainstream corporate media outlet is openly announcing a plan to hogtie Trump’s second attempt at being president is already in motion.
  • Below is an excerpt from an article by Modernity News published Monday, January 15, 2024.
    • A former State Department official has warned that deep state insiders and elements of the military are planning to derail Trump’s presidency should he win the election.
    • On Sunday, NBC News reported that “a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers” are planning to use lawfare and other tactics to block Trump from exercising power on day one of his return to the Oval Office.
    • According to the article, these insiders will go all out “to foil any efforts to expand presidential power,” even if Trump has been given a mandate to do so by the American people.
    • And they are increasingly open about their plans.

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Hundreds of journalists pressure media to cast Israel as the problem

Important Takeaways:

  • 750 global journalists say media should cast Israeli actions as ‘genocide, apartheid’
  • Over 750 former and current journalists around the world have signed a petition calling on the media to begin using terms such as “genocide” and “apartheid” to describe Israel’s actions in the conflict with the Palestinians, while blasting international media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
  • “Israel has blocked foreign press entry, heavily restricted telecommunications, and bombed press offices,” the petition read. “Some 50 media headquarters in Gaza have been hit in the past month. Israeli forces explicitly warned newsrooms they ‘cannot guarantee’ the safety of their employees from airstrikes.
  • “Taken with a decades-long pattern of lethally targeting journalists, Israel’s actions show wide-scale suppression of speech,” it claimed.
  • Journalists from Reuters, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, and The Washington Post are among the signatories.

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A nation of misinformation 60% blame the media

Proverbs 12:22 “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Poll: 60% Say Establishment Media to Blame for Misinformation
  • While 60 percent say the establishment media are to blame for misinforming the public, a similar number say they bear responsibility for addressing it.
  • Nine out of ten Americans say the media’s misinformation is a problem. About 33 percent of Americans told the pollsters they see misleading establishment media headlines or false claims from politicians every day.
  • Americans also blame the establishment media for political polarization. About three out of four Americans say the media are responsible for the polarization, and just under half of those sampled have little to no trust in the media’s accuracy or fairness in reporting.
  • Only 16 percent say they are very confident that the media report the news fully and fairly. Forty-five percent told the pollster they have little to no confidence at all.

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Challenging the status quo made Joe Rogan public enemy No. 1

Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

Important Takeaways:

  • How Joe Rogan became Public Enemy No. 1 to media liberals in the battle over COVID ‘misinformation’
  • The biggest difference between Rogan and the consensus pushers in the legacy media is that he’s curious,’ Steve Krakauer said
  • “Has Rogan hosted conversations on his podcast where guests, or he, have made dubious statements? Absolutely. But the difference between Rogan and the establishment press is these statements are made not in the context of a veneer of absolute truth, but in a free-flowing exchange of ideas and conversation.”
  • By 2015, “The Joe Rogan Experience” topped 11 million monthly downloads
  • Four years later at the beginning of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Spotify announced it would bring “The Joe Rogan Experience” exclusively to its platform. That same year, Rogan declared he would “probably vote for Bernie” Sanders
  • A mere two years after Rogan first annoyed progressives simply by saying he’d vote for a self-described Democratic socialist, the “The Joe Rogan Experience” is seen as the face of COVID “misinformation” by many outspoken lefties.
  • In June 2021, Rogan’s guest, biologist Bret Weinstein, said “ivermectin alone, if properly utilized, is capable of driving this pathogen to extinction.” Months later, Rogan announced he tested positive for COVID himself and was using ivermectin to help combat the virus
  • The anti-speech activists in the media hate Rogan because they fear him,” Krakauer said. “Because if an audience can be empowered to think for themselves by a media personality who refuses to tell people what to think, what do they need the mainstream press for?”

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Second Myanmar official dies after arrest, junta steps up media crackdown

(Reuters) – An official from deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) died in custody after he was arrested early on Tuesday, the second party figure to die in detention in two days, as security forces broke up street protests against the military junta.

Police also cracked down independent media, raiding the offices of two news outlets and detaining two journalists.

Myanmar has been in crisis since the army ousted Suu Kyi’s elected government in a coup on Feb. 1, detained her and other NLD officials, and set up a ruling junta of generals.

The NLD’s Zaw Myat Linn died in custody on Tuesday after he was arrested in the country’s main city of Yangon around 1:30 a.m., said Ba Myo Thein, a member of the dissolved upper house of parliament.

“He’s been participating continuously in the protests,” Ba Myo Thein said. The cause of death was not clear.

Neither the military nor the police responded to calls for comment.

Zaw Myat Linn is the second NLD official to have died in custody in the last two days. Khin Maung Latt, who had worked as a campaign manager for an NLD MP elected in 2020, died after he was arrested on Saturday night.

Police broke up scattered demonstrations in Yangon – the former capital and still the main city – and other towns across Myanmar with tear gas and stun grenades on Tuesday.

At least two people were wounded, one by a gunshot, in the town of Mohnyin in the north, local media said.

Witnesses said two journalists from Kamayut, an independent media company, were arrested, while the military raided the offices of Mizzima News in Yangon.

Live footage posted to social media also showed a raid after nightfall on the offices of the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).

A day earlier, the junta stripped Mizzima, DVB, and three other outlets of their licenses. They had all been active in covering protests against the coup.

At least 35 journalists have been arrested since the Feb. 1 coup, Myanmar Now reported, of which 19 have been released.

The U.S State Department said it “strongly condemned the junta for the… violent crackdowns on those peacefully taking to the streets and on those who are just doing their jobs, including independent journalists who have been swept up.”

Daily protests against the coup are being staged across the country and security forces have cracked down harshly. More than 60 protesters have been killed and more than 1,800 detained, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), an advocacy group, has said.

CAUGHT IN A TRAP

Overnight, police arrested about 50 people who had been cornered by security forces in a district of Yangon, a rights group said. But hundreds managed to escape the encirclement after crowds of demonstrators rallied in their support in defiance of a night-time curfew.

Western powers and the United Nations had called on the military to allow the youths to leave the area in safety.

Activist Shar Ya Mone said she had been in a building with about 15 to 20 others, but was able to get home after people gave our free car rides and welcomed protesters.

She said she would keep demonstrating “until the dictatorship ends”.

The army has justified the coup by saying that a November election won by the NLD was marred by fraud – a claim rejected by the electoral commission. It has promised a new election, but has not said when that might be held.

International powers have condemned the takeover, which derailed a slow transition to democracy in a country that has been ruled by the military for long periods since independence from Britain in 1947.

The junta said on Tuesday it was recalling its ambassador to Britain a day after he urged them in a statement to release Suu Kyi, state media reported.

The MRTV news channel said Kyaw Swar Min, one of several ambassadors to publicly break from the military line, had released the statement without following orders.

The military has brushed off condemnation of its actions, as it has in past periods of army rule when outbreaks of protest were bloodily repressed.

It is also under pressure from a civil disobedience movement that has crippled government business and from strikes at banks, factories and shops that have shut much of Yangon this week.

The European Union is preparing to widen its sanctions to target army-run businesses, according to diplomats and two internal documents seen by Reuters.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Ed Davies, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Poppy McPherson; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Angus MacSwan)

Why Republican voters say there’s ‘no way in hell’ Trump lost

By Brad Brooks, Nathan Layne and Tim Reid

SUNDOWN, Texas (Reuters) – Brett Fryar is a middle-class Republican. A 50-year-old chiropractor in this west Texas town, he owns a small business. He has two undergraduate degrees and a master’s degree, in organic chemistry. He attends Southcrest Baptist Church in nearby Lubbock.

Fryar didn’t much like Donald Trump at first, during the U.S. president’s 2016 campaign. He voted for Texas Senator Ted Cruz in the Republican primaries.

Now, Fryar says he would go to war for Trump. He has joined the newly formed South Plains Patriots, a group of a few hundred members that includes a “reactionary” force of about three dozen – including Fryar and his son, Caleb – who conduct firearms training.

Nothing will convince Fryar and many others here in Sundown – including the town’s mayor, another Patriots member – that Democrat Joe Biden won the Nov. 3 presidential election fairly. They believe Trump’s stream of election-fraud allegations and say they’re preparing for the possibility of a “civil war” with the American political left.

“If President Trump comes out and says: ‘Guys, I have irrefutable proof of fraud, the courts won’t listen, and I’m now calling on Americans to take up arms,’ we would go,” said Fryar, wearing a button-down shirt, pressed slacks and a paisley tie during a recent interview at his office.

The unshakable trust in Trump in this town of about 1,400 residents reflects a national phenomenon among many Republicans, despite the absence of evidence in a barrage of post-election lawsuits by the president and his allies. About half of Republicans polled by Reuters/Ipsos said Trump “rightfully won” the election but had it stolen from him in systemic fraud favoring Biden, according to a survey conducted between Nov. 13 and 17. Just 29% of Republicans said Biden rightfully won. Other polls since the election have reported that an even higher proportion – up to 80% – of Republicans trust Trump’s baseless fraud narrative.

Trump’s legal onslaught has so far flopped, with judges quickly dismissing many cases and his lawyers dropping or withdrawing from others. None of the cases contain allegations – much less evidence – that are likely to invalidate enough votes to overturn the election, election experts say.

And yet the election-theft claims are proving politically potent. All but a handful of Republican lawmakers have backed Trump’s fraud claims or stayed silent, effectively freezing the transition of power as the president refuses to concede. Trump has succeeded in sowing further public distrust in the media, which typically calls elections, and undermined citizens’ faith in the state and local election officials who underpin American democracy.

In Reuters interviews with 50 Trump voters, all said they believed the election was rigged or in some way illegitimate. Of those, 20 said they would consider accepting Biden as their president, but only in light of proof that the election was conducted fairly. Most repeated debunked conspiracy theories espoused by Trump, Republican officials and conservative media claiming that millions of votes were dishonestly switched to Biden in key states by biased poll workers and hacked voting machines.

Many voters interviewed by Reuters said they formed their opinions by watching emergent right-wing media outlets such as Newsmax and One American News Network that have amplified Trump’s fraud claims. Some have boycotted Fox News out of anger that the network called Biden the election winner and that some of its news anchors – in contrast to its opinion show stars – have been skeptical of Trump’s fraud allegations.

“I just sent Fox News an email,” Fryar said, telling the network: “You’re the only news I’ve watched for the last six years, but I will not watch you anymore.”

The widespread rejection of the election result among Republicans reflects a new and dangerous dynamic in American politics: the normalization of false and increasingly extreme conspiracy theories among tens of millions of mainstream voters, according to government scholars, analysts and some lawmakers on both sides of the political divide. The trend has deeply troubling long-term implications for American political and civic institutions, said Paul Light, a veteran political scientist at New York University (NYU).

“This is dystopian,” Light said. “America could fracture.”

Adam Kinzinger, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, is among the few party members to publicly recognize Biden’s victory. He called his Republican colleagues’ reluctance to reject Trump’s conspiracies a failure of political courage that threatens to undermine American democracy for years. If citizens lose faith in election integrity, that could lead to “really bad things,” including violence and social unrest, he said in an interview.

David Gergen – an adviser to four previous U.S. presidents, two Democrats and two Republicans – said Trump is trying to “kneecap” the Biden administration before it takes power, noting this is the first time a sitting American president has tried to overthrow an election result.

It may not be the last time. Many Republicans see attacks on election integrity as a winning issue for future campaigns – including the next presidential race, according to one Republican operative close to the Trump campaign. The party, the person said, is setting up a push for “far more stringent oversight on voting procedures in 2024,” when the party’s nominee will likely be Trump or his anointed successor.

Other Republicans urged patience and faith in the government. Charlie Black, a veteran Republican strategist, does not believe Republican lawmakers will continue backing Trump’s fraud claims after Biden is inaugurated. They will need White House cooperation on basic government functions, such as appropriations and defense bills, he said.

“People will come to see we still have a functioning government,” Black said, and Republicans will become “resigned to Biden, and see it’s not the end of the world.”

The Biden campaign declined to comment for this story. Boris Epshteyn, a strategic advisor to the Trump campaign, said: “The President and his campaign are confident that when every legal vote is counted, and every illegal vote is not, it will be determined that President Trump has won re-election to a second term.”

‘THERE’S JUST NO WAY’

Media outlets declared Biden the election winner on Nov. 7. As calls were finalized in battleground states, Biden’s lead in the Electoral College that decides the presidency widened to 306 to 232.

Many Republican voters scoff at those results, convinced Trump was cheated. Raymond Fontaine, a hardware store owner in Oakville, Connecticut, said Biden’s vote total – the highest of any presidential candidate in history – makes no sense because the 78-year-old Democrat made relatively few campaign appearances and seemed to be in mental decline.

“You are going to tell me 77 million Americans voted for him? There is just no way,” said Fontaine, 50.

The latest popular vote total for Biden has grown to about 79 million, compared to some 73 million for Trump.

Like many Trump supporters interviewed by Reuters, Fontaine was deeply suspicious of computerized voting machines. Trump and his allies have alleged, without producing evidence, a grand conspiracy to manipulate votes through the software used in many battleground states.

In Grant County, West Virginia – a mountainous region where more than 88% of voters backed the president – trust in Trump runs deep. Janet Hedrick, co-owner of the Smoke Hole Caverns log cabin resort in the small town of Cabins, said she would never accept Biden as a legitimate president.

“There’s millions and millions of Trump votes that were just thrown out,” said Hedrick, 70, a retired teacher and librarian. “That computer was throwing them out.”

At the Sunset Restaurant in Moorefield, West Virginia – a diner featuring omelets, hotcakes and waitresses who remember your order – a mention of the election sparked a spirited discussion at one table. Gene See, a retired highway construction inspector, and Bob Hyson, a semi-retired insurance sales manager, said Trump had been cheated, that Biden had dementia and that Democrats planned all along to quickly replace Biden with his more liberal running mate for vice president, Kamala Harris.

“I think if they ever get to the bottom of it, they will find massive fraud,” said another of the diners, Larry Kessel, a 67-year-old farmer.

Kessel’s wife, Jane, patted him on the arm, trying to calm him, as he grew agitated while railing against anti-Trump media bias.

Trump’s rage against the media has lately included rants against Fox News. He has pushed his supporters towards more right-wing outlets such as Newsmax and One America News Network, which have championed the president’s fraud claims.

Rory Wells, 51, a New Jersey lawyer who attended a pro-Trump “stop the steal” election protest in Trenton last week, said he now watches Newsmax because Fox isn’t sufficiently conservative.

“I like that I get to hear from Rudy Giuliani and others who are not immediately discounted as being crazy,” he said of Trump’s lead election lawyer.

Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy said the network’s viewership has exploded since the election, with nearly 3 million viewers nightly via cable television and streaming video devices.

Ruddy said Newsmax isn’t saying that Biden stole the election – but they’re also not calling him the winner given that Trump has valid legal claims. “The same media who said Biden would win in a landslide now want to not have recounts,” he said in a phone interview.

Charles Herring, president of One America News Network, said in a statement that his network has seen three weeks of record ratings, as “frustrated Fox News viewers” have tuned in.

‘NO WAY IN HELL’

Some Trump supporters said they would accept Biden as the winner if that is the final, official result. Janel Henritz, 36, echoed some others in saying that she believed the election included fraud, but perhaps not enough to change the outcome. Henritz, who works alongside her mother Janet Hedrick at their log cabin resort in West Virginia, said she would accept the outcome if Biden remains the winner after recounts and court challenges.

“Then he won fair and square,” she said.

In Sundown, Texas, Mayor Jonathan Strickland said there’s “no way in hell” Biden won fairly. The only way he’ll believe it, he said, is if Trump himself says so.

“Trump is the only one we’ve been able to trust for the last four years,” said Strickland, an oilfield production engineer. “As far as the civil war goes, I don’t think it’s off the table.”

If it comes to a fight, Caleb Fryar is ready. But the 26-year-old son of Brett Fryar, the chiropractor, said he hoped Trump’s fraud allegations would instead spark a massive mobilization of Republican voters in future elections.

Asked whether Trump might be duping his followers, he said it’s hard to fathom.

“If I’m being manipulated by Trump … then he is the greatest con man that ever lived in America,” Caleb Fryar said. “I think he’s the greatest patriot that ever lived.”

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Texas, Nathan Layne in West Virginia and Tim Reid in California; editing by Brian Thevenot)

U.N. expert accuses White House of ‘onslaught’ against media

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of expression on Monday accused the White House of mounting an “onslaught” against the media and referred to a negative “Trump effect” on global press freedom.

In his last official press briefing before his six-year tenure ends later this month, David Kaye said in a series of forthright comments that he hoped “attacks” on U.S. journalists would end when President Donald Trump leaves office.

“Clearly the signature issue over the past four years now has been the way in which this particular president addresses the media: The way he denigrates the media, denigrates freedom of expression,” he told journalists in Geneva.

Kaye specified that the so-called onslaught consisted of criticism of reporters and spreading “disinformation,” as well as partnerships with conservative media organisations.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Asked about the impact of that on press freedom around the world, he said: “There clearly is a Trump effect, a very negative one,” adding that previous U.S. administrations had been more critical of attacks on the press, such as the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He added that the Trump administration has created a global culture of permissiveness.

Kaye also raised broad concerns about government crackdowns that has worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic in a trend he described as “very disturbing” and contributing to the spread of the disease.

“Unfortunately often under the guise of trying to restrict disinformation, governments have resorted to old tools of clamping down on the free flow of information,” he said, without naming specific countries.

He was also critical of China’s “highly repressive approach to freedom of expression” and urged resistance to this approach.

“I think that there’s a real challenge to the democratic world to deal with what China considers to be the managed Internet approach and its approach to managing freedom of expression generally,” he said.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Aurora Ellis)

China orders some American media to give details on staff, after U.S. move

BEIJING (Reuters) – China has asked four U.S. media organizations to submit details about their operations in the country, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday, in what it described as retaliation for U.S. measures against Chinese media outlets.

The Associated Press (AP), UPI, CBS and National Public Radio (NPR) are required to provide information about their staff, financial operations and real estate in China within seven days, ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily news briefing.

“We urge the U.S. to immediately change course, correct its error, and desist (from) the political suppression and unreasonable restriction of Chinese media,” Zhao said.

The United States and China have been locked in a series of retaliatory actions involving journalists in recent months, amid increasing tensions over issues ranging from the coronavirus pandemic to Hong Kong.

Last month, the United States said it would start treating another four major Chinese state media outlets as foreign embassies, following similar measures taken by Washington earlier in the year.

That designation similarly required the outlets to report their personnel and real estate holdings.

In March, China expelled about a dozen U.S. journalists from the New York Times, the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. At the time, it also asked those outlets, as well as broadcaster Voice of America and Time magazine, to provide details on their China operations.

That had followed Washington’s move to slash the number of journalists permitted to work in the United States for four major Chinese state-owned media outlets.

“NPR is in communication with the relevant authorities and we are studying the request,” said an NPR spokesperson.

The AP said in a statement that it was “seeking more information about the requirements announced today and will review them carefully”.

CBS and UPI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In May, Washington limited visas for Chinese reporters to a 90-day period, with the option for extension. Previously, such visas were typically open-ended.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian and Gabriel Crossley; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Kim Coghill and Mark Heinrich)

Trump blasts media as anxious Americans come to grips with coronavirus pandemic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday capped a tumultuous week as Americans faced sweeping life changes and massive Wall Street losses amid the fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak by turning to a familiar playbook: attacking the media.

In a contentious press briefing, the Republican president lashed out at an NBC reporter who noted Trump’s tendency to put an optimistic spin on the situation and asked what his message was to the American people who may be scared.

“I say that you’re a terrible reporter. I think that is a nasty question,” Trump said.

Two of the nation’s most populous states – California and New York – have enacted their toughest restrictions yet affecting some 60 million people, while federal authorities this week moved to close the borders with Canada and Mexico. More than 200 people have died in the United States and over 14,000 cases of the highly contagious respiratory illness had been confirmed by Friday.

Trump and top administration officials for weeks downplayed the outbreak, which began in China in December, before shifting their tone about the severity of the health crisis more recently.

The president, who is running for re-election on Nov. 3, has long sparred with the media, blasting coverage of him as “fake news” and “hoaxes,” and slamming news outlets and journalists on his Twitter feed. His re-election campaign also recently filed lawsuits against several outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Yet the crises has propelled Trump recently to give briefings with news outlets nearly every day in the White House briefing room, a place he eschewed during his first three years in office.

On Friday, in a particularly unusual twist, Trump’s first White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, attended the briefing and asked a question in his role working for Newsmax. Spicer repeatedly sparred with reporters during his time as a spokesman early in Trump’s term.

During his recent engagements with the press, Trump has sought to display unabashed optimism despite more sober comments from public health officials, medical experts, state governors and others who have sounded the coronavirus alarm.

One reporter on Thursday asked about the impact on the economy as many businesses have had to dramatically shift operations or shut down entirely during drastic measures to slow the spread of the virus.

“Thanks for telling us. We appreciate it,” Trump said. “What’s the rest of your question? We know that. Everybody in the room knows that.”

Asked last week about his role regarding the disbanding of a National Security Council pandemic preparedness team on his watch, Trump told a PBS reporter: “That’s a nasty question… When you say me, I didn’t do it.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Alexandra Alper, and Jeff Mason; writing by Susan Heavey; editing by Bill Berkrot)