Category Archives: Media

Don’t Believe State-Department & Media Brief On Ukraine

Foreign Policy, Media, Russia

The division of Ukraine is impending if a political solution is not negotiated, with one part cleaving to Europe; the other to Russia. Also upon us is the second Cold War between the US and Russia, says Russian historian Stephen Cohen of The Nation.

Cohen is the only learned voice among the media monolith currently expatiating on the Kiev riots.

“Preposterous” is how Cohen has characterized Vice President Joe Biden’s demand that the democratically elected Ukrainian President Yanukovych withdraw forces from Maidan Square. Equally outrageous is the Obama Administration’s demand that the democratically elected president step down before elections are held next year, a demand with which the Stupid Party agrees.

Listen to the Cohen interview on the John Batchelor Show.

UPDATE II: Russia And The Pussy Riot Press (Pussy Rioting Again)

America, Feminism, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Russia

“Very little of the US media’s reflexive demonization of Russia and the Sochi games should be trusted,” we cautioned, on Feb. 8. “The trashing began well before the games and came from the usual menagerie of media morons, who, from studios in the US, were able to attest to everything from the availability of toilet paper to the overlapping dangers of terrorism and toothpaste.”

Now the left wing of the “Legacy Media” has awoken to the fact of systematic bias against Russia in US media. The blanks are filled in most ably by Stephen F. Cohen, writing in the February 11, online edition of The Nation:

… a general pattern has developed. Even in the venerable New York Times and Washington Post, news reports, editorials and commentaries no longer adhere rigorously to traditional journalistic standards, often failing to provide essential facts and context; to make a clear distinction between reporting and analysis; to require at least two different political or “expert” views on major developments; or to publish opposing opinions on their op-ed pages. As a result, American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War. …

… Since the early 2000s, the media have followed a different leader-centric narrative, also consistent with US policy, that devalues multifaceted analysis for a relentless demonization of Putin, with little regard for facts. (Was any Soviet Communist leader after Stalin ever so personally villainized?) If Russia under Yeltsin was presented as having legitimate politics and national interests, we are now made to believe that Putin’s Russia has none at all, at home or abroad—even on its own borders, as in Ukraine.

Russia today has serious problems and many repugnant Kremlin policies. But anyone relying on mainstream American media will not find there any of their origins or influences in Yeltsin’s Russia or in provocative US policies since the 1990s—only in the “autocrat” Putin who, however authoritarian, in reality lacks such power. Nor is he credited with stabilizing a disintegrating nuclear-armed country, assisting US security pursuits from Afghanistan and Syria to Iran or even with granting amnesty, in December, to more than 1,000 jailed prisoners, including mothers of young children. …

… Not long ago, committed readers could count on The New York Review of Books for factually trustworthy alternative perspectives on important historical and contemporary subjects. But when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, the NYRB has succumbed to the general media mania. In a January 21 blog post, Amy Knight, a regular contributor and inveterate Putin-basher, warned the US government against cooperating with the Kremlin on Sochi security, even suggesting that Putin’s secret services “might have had an interest in allowing or even facilitating such attacks” as killed or wounded dozens of Russians in Volgograd in December.

Knight’s innuendo prefigured a purported report on Ukraine by Yale professor Timothy Snyder in the February 20 issue. Omissions of facts, by journalists or scholars, are no less an untruth than misstatements of fact. Snyder’s article was full of both, which are widespread in the popular media, but these are in the esteemed NYRB and by an acclaimed academic. Consider a few of Snyder’s assertions: …

MORE.

UPDATE I: In “About Russia With Hate,” Eugene Girin exposes a cast of particularly slimy US media characters prating on about Putin.

UPDATE II (2/17): PUSSY RIOTING AGAIN.The Pussy Pukes are at it again, showing the foolish fluff women are made of.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, along with seven others, were held by police near Sochi’s ferry terminal, a popular area for fans celebrating the Olympics. Police said they were questioned in connection with a theft at the hotel where they were staying. No charges were filed. …

MORE.

READ “Will The ‘Pussy Riot’ Sisterhood Storm The Sistine Chapel?”

Desperately Needed: A Dose Of Kim-Jong-Un Justice

Democrats, Healthcare, Media, Socialism

“Desperately Needed: A Dose Of Kim-Jong-Un Justice” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

… As crucial as the pundits who bestow them with the “non-partisan” adjectival are the CBOafs (The Congressional Budget Oafs). They too protect the status-quo.

This federal agency is as “independent” as the country’s columnists, who might as well register as lobbyists for the RNC or DNC respectively.

Typically, the CBO will first confirm government predictions of the great savings that will accrue due to this or the other wastrel, welfare program. Later, when it’s safer, they adjust their statistical sleight of hand.

Yes, getting reliable data out of the CBO is like frisking a wet seal. Consistent with the agency’s drive to preserve its prized position, one finds older CBO-generated news headlines heralding the following healthcare breakthroughs:

“CBO Confirms Families Will Save Money Under Health Reform.”

“CBO Update Shows Lower Costs for the New Health Care Law.”

“CBO Confirms: The Health Care Law Reduces the Deficit.”

As if the above assurances are mathematically possible, given the $1 trillion in tax increases and $2 trillion in subsidies that Zero Care imposes.

Lately, as even an Obamahead at the Washington Post deigned to report, “The CBO [has] predicted that the law would have a ‘substantially larger’ impact on the labor market than it had previously expected: The law would reduce the workforce in 2021 by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time workers … This will inevitably be a drag on economic growth, as more people decide government handouts are more attractive than working more and paying higher taxes.”

The White House quickly countered its bean-counters by releasing the news that, to date, 3.3 million people had signed up on Healthcare.gov, and that enrollment was proceeding apace.

The swirl of new statistics is bound to disorient the ditz aforementioned. Before she forgets, let us remind Kirsten Powers of two small things. The latest sample generated by Health and Human Services is heavily weighted by:

1. People who’ve clicked on a plan but have not paid for it.
2. People like Powers who previously had insurance. First to be expunged from the individual health-care market, they have now been corralled into Obamacare.

NHAHAHAHAHAHA! …

Read on. The complete column is “Desperately Needed: A Dose Of Kim-Jong-Un Justice.”

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US Fascism Rising: 46th Best Country For Journalistic Freedoms

Fascism, Free Speech, Journalism, Media

Via The Wire: “The United States took a nasty drop in the World Press Freedom rankings, released on Wednesday by the media group Reporters Without Borders, falling 14 spots to the 46th best country for journalist freedoms. Of the 180 countries ranked, the home of the First Amendment now sits snuggled between Romania and Haiti.”

The U.S.’s jump in last year’s rankings was dismissed at the time as “deceptive progress,” and true to form, America has fallen back down the list. The rankings report blame the U.S.’s drop on its wide-ranging crackdown on whistleblowers, particularly Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning (who got a 35-year sentence for leaking documents), and the attempted 105-year sentence for Barrett Brown. To the American government, “The whistleblower is the enemy,” the report writes. Similarly, the subpoena of Associated Press phone records contributed to that drastic drop.

MORE.

I am a tad surprised at the pass the UK gets. Via RT:

RWB did not considered the most recent revelation about British intelligence, found practicing not just spying but actively using cyber-attacks to deal with such information disseminators as Anonymous and LulzSec hacktivists, or that global media watchdogs are planning to investigate press freedom in the UK.

Also, Glenn Greenwald’s revelations about UK and US mainstream media being “devoted servants” of the intelligence agencies seemingly have not affected the rating.

Meanwhile WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is still trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, with the freedom of information campaigner still being pursued by UK and Swedish justice.