"Fake News" Is News That Someone Does Not Like. Is Not Necessarily Untrue!

Part 2 of 2. Read the first part, "1st Amendment written to protect 'fake news'" Although the term "fake news" was not part of their lexicon, the Founding Fathers understood quite well the concept. As I discussed last week in "1st Amendment was written to protect fake news," highly partisan editors used the power of their presses to disseminate their views with little concern over whether they were being truthful or even upheld basic standards of decorum. Newspapers, pamphlets and broadsheets provided nourishment to both spark the American Revolution and keep it alive. Doubtless King George thought the ongoing lists of grievances colonial editors proclaimed against the crown were at best overblown if not outright lies. As Ken Burns notes in his book , Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and The Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism: Certainly the war would not have begun as soon as it did without the encouragement of the press. As New York Journal editor John Holt said on one occasion to Sam Adams, "It was by means of News papers that we receiv'd & spread the Notice of the tyrannical Designs formed against America, and kindled a Spirit that has been sufficient to repel them. And almost certainly, the war would not have ended with an American victory in a period of seven years from the first shot to signed treaty had not the newspapers – and some pamphlets – constantly reminded the colonists of the cause they shared, thereby inspiring the valor of soldiers and the patience and support of civilians. The British knew it, too. The Boston Gazette was the only paper on their hit list before the war began, but as battles raged and patriot prose became ever more the tie that bound the colonies into a makeshift nation, the British set upon print shops as they did stray battalions of colonial militia. Sometimes, rather than wrecking the supplies and equipment, they stole them and delivered them to Tory publishers for more sympathetic use. Criticism from the press during the war wasn't just aimed at the crown. Editors, pamphleteers and broadsheet publishers directed scorn at one another, at the generals – George Washington in particular -- and the politicians. And after the war politicians – even esteemed and venerated figures like Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton – were special targets. The media occasionally feigned impartiality, but it wasn't unusual for an editor to use his publication for the sole purpose of tearing down one politician or cause and venerating another. And yet even with this history, the Founders believed a free press to be an essential freedom. In The Founding Father's Guide to the Constitution, author Brion McClannahan writes that the drafters spent little time debating most 1st Amendment freedoms because they almost unanimously agreed they were all essential for a free people. Still some saw not giving the idea a free press a mention in the document as a grave oversight. Arthur Lee, writing as "Cincinnatus" to James Wilson in 1787 said, "I have proved, sir, that not only some power is given in the constitution to restrain, and even to subject the press, but that it is a power totally unlimited; and may certainly annihilate the freedom the press and convert it from being the palladium of liberty to become an engine of imposition and tyranny. It is an easy step from restraining the press to making it a place of the worst actions of government in so favorable a light, that we may groan under tyranny and oppression without knowing from whence it comes." Richard Henry Lee wrote that a "free press is the channel of communication as to mercantile and public affairs; by means of it the people in large countries ascertain each other's sentiments; are enabled to unite, and become formidable to those rulers who adopt improper measures. Newspapers may sometimes be the vehicles of abuse, and of many things not true; but these are small inconveniences, in my mind, among many advantages." In 1797, Benjamin Franklin Bache – the grandson of Benjamin Franklin -- published a pamphlet titled "Remarks Occasioned by the Late Conduct of Mr. Washington." In that pamphlet, Bache stated, "[Washington was] A Virginia planter, by no means that most eminent, a militia-officer ignorant of war both in theory and useful practice, and a politician certainly not of the first magnitude… He is but a man, and certainly not a great man." When Washington decided that he would not run for a third term in 1796, and that the vice president of his administration John Adams would run instead, Bache's paper, the Aurora, approved. It claimed that Washington avoided running for a third term "from a consciousness that he would not be re-elected" and "to save himself the mortification and disgrace of being superceded. (sic)" Bache praised Adams through the early part of his presidency. But that changed after Adams gave his war speech to a special session of Congress in 1797. Bache began to excoriate Adams for what he saw as Adams' increasing likelihood to take the U.S. to war with Great Britain. So harsh were Bache's attacks on Adams that the In June of 1798 Bache was arrested under the Alien and Sedition Act – which had not yet passed Congress, much less been signed into law – just 10 days after publishing a letter from the French minister Talleyrand exposing the XYZ Affair. Alexander Hamilton used a newspaper, the Gazette of the United States to prop himself up and excoriate his enemies – most notably Adams and later Thomas Jefferson. The Gazette of the United States began publication on April 15, 1789, a month before the Constitutional Convention. Editor John Fenno used the publication to promote Washington and gave Hamilton a forum for promotion of self and later promotion of a national bank, his politics (Hamiltonianism, which was British mercantilism or crony capitalism), his friends for political office and to denigrate his political enemies andJefferson's actions as Secretary of State. While he was Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton used the Gazette as a house organ for the Treasury Department and in turn supported the paper with money from the Treasury Department in the form of "advertising." He also leaned on friends and business associates to purchase ads in the paper in exchange for "favors" from the government. To counter Hamiltonianism, which Jefferson rightly saw as an assault on individual liberty, he – with James Madison's assistance – recruited another well-known editor named Philip Freneau to publish a paper named the National Gazette in 1791. Jefferson even put Freneau on the State Department payroll to supplement his salary. Over most of the next decade the two papers went after one another and their benefactors tooth and thong, with the National Gazette revealing an adulterous affair between Hamilton and Maria Reynolds, and the Gazette of the U.S. eventually printing stories of a relationship between Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings. The national press has changed little over the years. Elites have used it to start wars, tear down their enemies and prop up others. They've used it to plunder and pillage. Under the George W. Bush regime, we learned that syndicated broadcast host Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 by the Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind Act. In 2004, the Department of Health and Human Services disseminated a propaganda video promoting the Medicare prescription drug law that ended with the tagline "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." This video and several like it were run by local television stations as news clips without disclosing its source. This was blatant government propaganda that violated U.S. law, and it was shut down by an inspector general. Dozens of members of the mainstream press are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations, "the American Branch of a society which originated in England, and which believes that national boundaries should be obliterated, and a one-world rule established," as CFR member Carroll Quigley himself wrote in his book Tragedy and Hope. So the CFR not only controls the branches of government, it also controls the press. And what it doesn't control, the CIA, British MI6, Germany's BND and Israel's Mossad do. German reporter Dr. Udo Ulfkotte told American Free Press that "typically, intelligence agencies use 'unofficial covers' — people working for the agency but not actually on its payroll as agents. It is a broad, loose network of 'friends,' doing one another favors. Many are lead journalists from numerous countries. This informality provides plausible deniability for both sides, but it means an 'unofficial cover,' as Ulfkotte became, is on his own if captured." Reporters get large sums of money, gifts, public recognition, significant career advancement and open doors to the elite policymakers in the Trilateral Commission (an arm of the CFR), Atlantik-Brücke, the Aspen Institute and German Marshall Fund of the United States in exchange for information obtained through spying. Those who don't cooperate are fired. Utfkottee also told RT: "We're talking about puppets on a string, journalists who write or say whatever their masters tell them to say or write. If you see how the mainstream media is reporting about the Ukraine conflict and if you know what's really going on, you get the picture. The masters in the background are pushing for war with Russia and western journalists are putting on their helmets… I'm ashamed I was part of it. Unfortunately I cannot reverse this. Although my superiors at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung approved of what I did, I'm still to blame. But yes, to my knowledge I am the first to accuse myself and to prove many others are to blame." Now Donald Trump, with the almost universal acquiescence if not support of his acolytes, is calling out "fake news" and threatening to shut down or sanction news outlets. And leftists have long been advocates for shutting down unapproved news outlets and continue to do so under the guise of cutting off "Russian propaganda." Both truth and dissent – which may or may not be the same thing – are like kryptonite to the power elite. The Founders understood this. They also understood that propaganda was a powerful tool, but that it could be overcome only by allowing a free press. Those who join in condemning "fake news" and seeking to shut down certain news outlets on the premise that they may be printing 'fake news' are advocating for their own slavery. If government can shut down one outlet it deems fake, it can shut down them all. And then what are we left with? I agree with Richard Henry Lee. "Newspapers (and online blogs and even Russian bots) may sometimes be the vehicles of abuse, and of many things not true; but these are small inconveniences, in my mind, among many advantages." Yours for the truth, Bob Livingston Editor, The Bob Livingston Letter™

Lack Of Understanding Of The History Of The US And Constitution Will Crash The US

Millennials would rather live in socialist or communist nation than under capitalism: Poll

‘This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society’

A series of busts of Russia’s rulers, including Vladimir Lenin, second right, and Josef Stalin, third right, are on display in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. The Russian Military-Historic Society, an organization founded by President Vladimir Putin and led ... more >

 Print

By Bradford Richardson - The Washington Times - Saturday, November 4, 2017

A majority of millennials would prefer to live in a socialist, communist or fascist nation rather than a capitalistic one, according to a new poll.

In the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s “Annual Report on US Attitudes toward Socialism,” 58 percent of the up-and-coming generation opted for one of the three systems, compared to 42 percent who said they were in favor of capitalism.

The most popular socioeconomic order was socialism with 44 percent support. Communism and fascism received 7 percent support each.

Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, said the report shows millennials are “increasingly turning away from capitalism and toward socialism and even communism as a viable alternative.”

“This troubling turn highlights widespread historical illiteracy in American society regarding socialism and the systemic failure of our education system to teach students about the genocide, destruction, and misery caused by communism since the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago,” Mr. Smith said in a statement.

Millennials are more likely to prefer socialism and communism than the rest of the country. Fifty-nine percent of all respondents chose capitalism as their prefered arrangement, compared to 34 percent who said socialism, 4 percent fascism and 3 percent communism.

Recommended by

Some of communism’s luminaries are admired by millennials. Thirty-one percent said they have a favorable view of Che Guevara, 32 percent of Karl Marx, 23 percent of Vladimir Lenin and 19 percent of Mao Zedong. Joseph Stalin is viewed favorably by just 6 percent.

In the poll, only 33 percent of millennials were able to identify the correct definition of socialism. They fared about as well as the rest of the country, which only successfully identified socialism at a 34 percent clip. Gen Z―the generation after millennials―was the most informed group, with 43 percent correctly identifying socialism.

Where millennials struggled compared to other generations was in the identification of capitalism. Just 51 percent correctly said capitalism is the “Economic system based on free markets and the rule of law with legal protections for private ownership.” That was by far the lowest of any age cohort. Americans as a whole correctly identified capitalism 67 percent of the time.

Millennials are also less likely to have a negative view of communism. Just 36 percent said they had a “very unfavorable” impression of the system, and only 44 percent said they would be insulted if described as a communist. As a whole, 56 percent of Americans view communism very unfavorably, and 63 percent would be insulted to be associated with the ideology.

One possible explanation for the millennial infatuation with socialism is that 53 percent of the cohort report feeling burdened by the economy. Millennials were the only age group more likely to say America’s economic system “works against me” rather than “works for me.” Gen Z had the most positive impression of the economy, with 66 percent saying it “works for me”―although many of them have yet to enter the workforce.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation survey was conducted online from Sept. 28 to Oct. 5 by YouGov. It polled 2,300 members of the general public age 16 and above
.

Politically Correctness Be Damned!

Bergdahl Is One Lucky SOB

Trump Reacts to Bergdahl’s Sentence

 True Daily Staff  November 3, 2017  News  2 Comments

President Trump tweeted Friday that Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s sentence– a dishonorable discharge, but no prison time for leaving his post in June 2009 — was a “complete and total disgrace.”

More than eight years after Bergdahl walked off his base in Afghanistan — and unwittingly into the clutches of the Taliban — Bergdahl walked out of a North Carolina courtroom a free man Friday. Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty to endangering his comrades, was fined, reduced in rank to E1 and dishonorably discharged — but he received no prison time.

Trump, aboard Air Force One en route to meetings in Asia, tweeted his disapproval of the sentence.

Donald J. Trump 

✔@realDonaldTrump

The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military.

12:54 PM - Nov 3, 2017

•  36,70036,700 Replies
 
•  28,64228,642 Retweets
 
•  100,157100,157 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy

“The decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military,” Trump wrote.

Read more at Fox News.

Opioids Are A Significantly Worse Problem Than Guns!! Yet No Call For Banning, Confiscation!!

US rate for gun deaths is up for the second straight year

Associated Press Friday, November 03, 2017

Credit: AP photo

FILE - In this July 7, 2014 file photo, Chicago police display some of the thousands of illegal firearms confiscated during the year. In a government report released on Friday, Nov. 3, 2017, the U.S. rate for gun deaths has increased for the second straight year, following 15 years of no real change. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)

FacebookTwitterGoogle+Reddit

4 COMMENTS

NEW YORK — The U.S. rate for gun deaths has increased for the second straight year, following 15 years of no real change, a government report shows.

Roughly two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides and those have been increasing for about 10 years. Until recently, that has been offset by a decline in people shot dead by others. But there's been a recent upswing in those gun-related homicides, too, some experts said.

Overall, the firearm death rate rose to 12 deaths per 100,000 people last year, up from 11 in 2015, according to the reportreleased Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Before that, the rate had hovered just above 10 — a level it had fallen to in the late 1990s.

In the early 90s, it was as high as 15 per 100,000 people.

In the past two years, sharp homicide increases in Chicago and other places that have been large enough to elevate the national statistics. According to the FBI's raw numbers, the tally of U.S. homicides involving guns rose to nearly 11,000 last year, from about 9,600 the year before.

Overall, there were more than 38,000 gun deaths last year, according to the CDC. That's up from about 36,000 in 2015, and around 33,500 each year between 2011 and 2014.

The latest CDC report means the nation is approaching two decades since there's been any substantial improvement in the rate of gun deaths, said Dr. Garen Wintemute, a prominent gun violence researcher at the University of California, Davis.

The rate for the first three months of this year was about what it was for the same period last year. Hopefully, it's a sign it will level off again, Wintemute said.

Most gun deaths tend to happen in warm weather so it's too early to know what is happening this year, said Bob Anderson, the CDC's chief of mortality statistics.

The CDC also reported a continued increase in the death rate from drug overdoses, which hit 20 per 100,000 last year, up from 16 the year before. Heroin and other opioids are driving the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history.

If This Were Any Other Religion, The Left Would Be Up In Arms, However, Islam Gets A Pass

November 3, 2017

Education Jihad: Promoting Islam in American Schools

By Janet Levy

For decades, organizations and individuals have undermined our American education system by attacking our beliefs in a constitutional republic and our fundamental Judeo-Christian principles.  These have been supplanted with a "multicultural" viewpoint, which has taken the place of traditional American perspectives and values with accommodation and appeasement of protected minorities depicted as victims of the dominant culture.  Oil-rich Arab-Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia and its Muslim Brotherhood cohorts, have used multiculturalism to target impressionable youths in our public schools, promote Islam, and advance Islamic political agendas.  Under the subterfuge of promoting a multicultural educational environment, these agents have replaced time-honored educational materials of American ideals and historical perspectives with anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Judeo-Christian, and pro-Islamic rhetoric.

This re-engineering of the education system to disproportionately highlight the virtues and contributions of Islamic ideology is part of "civilizational jihad," the enemy's term for the subversion of our society.  It was defined in the 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America," presented as evidence in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial.  The document calls for the stealth takeover of North America through infiltration of all of society, with the ultimate goal of destroying the U.S. and turning it into a Muslim nation.

Over the past 40-plus years, this infiltration has occurred in education, with the Saudi royal family contributing billions in gifts and endowments to U.S. universities to spread anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda.  Through creation of Middle East studies centers at top institutions of higher learning, the Saudis have influenced curricula and textbook content.  Those involved include several Muslim Brotherhood affiliates and Islamist organizations, such as the Institute on Religion and Civil Values (formerly the Council on Islamic Education), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Institute of Islamic Information and Education (IIIE), the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), Saudi-endowed Islamic and Middle East studies centers, and others.  Their activities within our public schools include seminars and training programs for teachers, textbook creation and editing, curriculum development, lesson plans, student worksheets, and instructional videos.

Saudi success comes mainly from exploitation of Title VI of the Higher Education Act, which authorizes federal grants to university programs, including Middle East studies centers.  Title VI grantees must produce outreach programs for our nation's educators, and pro-Islamic organizations have attained legitimacy by partnering with top universities.  Using U.S. taxpayer-subsidized lesson plans and seminars for America's K-12 teachers with the imprimatur of schools like Harvard, infiltrators easily integrated Islamic perspectives into the K-12 curriculum, avoiding  public vetting and government oversight.  Materials promoting Islam, denigrating Judaism and Christianity, and criticizing alleged American prejudice against the Muslim world insidiously made their way into American education.  Some of the materials in use go so far as to blame America for terrorism and decry prejudice against Muslims in the U.S.

One of the key teaching resources promoted by Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies outreach program was the controversial, propaganda-laden "Arab World Studies Notebook," a factually incorrect textbook purported to promote "the Arab point of view."  The text is almost devoid of citations and promotes a pro-Islam, Muslim-centric view of history.  According to a recent report by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), "Indoctrinating Our Youth: How a U.S. Public School Curriculum Skews the Arab-Israeli Conflict and Islam," the widely used text erroneously cites Jerusalem as "an Arab city" and fails to acknowledge ancient Judaic and Christian ties to the Israeli capital.  It fallaciously claims that Islam's ties are "equally long and much deeper," even though Islam emerged only in the 7th century A.D.  The Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA) noted that the "notebook" implies that Jews have undue impact on U.S. foreign policy and that Israel was created after American Jewish lobbying.  It also proposes the supremacy of Islam and denigrates beliefs held by Jews and Christians, suggesting that the Quran "synthesizes and perfects earlier revelations."

Meanwhile, a key Islamic educational textbook author has been Muslim convert Susan Douglass.  A principal researcher and writer for the Institute on Religion and Civil Values (IRCV), Douglass was also an educational consultant for the Saudi-funded Georgetown University Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and a member of the editorial board of the Muslim Brotherhood's ISNA.  The IIIT, created expressly to influence higher education, teachers, and textbooks, published books written by Douglass used in American schools.  Douglass reviewed world history textbooks of three major publishers – McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, and Prentice Hall – and was allowed to present a view promoting Islam and in accordance with IRCV recommendations.  Douglass and the IRCV have had a major impact on the textbook presentation of Islam, minimizing its violent aspects and making the ideology attractive to non-Muslim children.  Douglass was also instrumental in developing standards for teaching religion in public schools and providing teacher and curriculum guidelines.

Douglas and her husband previously taught at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Virginia, dubbed "Terror High" by some media outlets.  In 2007, the school was found in violation of federal law by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for using discriminatory materials that teach students to "hate" Jews, Christians, and other "unbelievers" and that espouse violent jihad as a religious duty for Muslims.

The organization for which Douglass has been an author, the Institute on Religion and Civic Values, is a national non-profit with a mission "to support and strengthen American public education" by drawing on "civic, ethical and educational principles in Islam."  The group's leadership and collaborators are connected to Muslim Brotherhood organizations such as IIIT, CAIR, and the Muslim American Society (MAS), among others.  IRCV focuses on portraying a positive view of Islam in K-12 education and vetting textbooks.  It developed a curriculum manual for students to "simulate becoming Muslims"; was instrumental in minimizing the teaching of Judaism, Christianity, and other faiths; and changed the educational approach in many schools from informational teaching on Islam to indoctrination and proselytizing.

Meanwhile, yet another organization, The Institute of Islamic Information and Education, an ISNA branch, began in Chicago as far back as1985 to convey the Islamic message throughout North America, open non-Muslims to Islam, and "remove fabricated materials from circulation."  It evaluates educational materials for their portrayal of Islam and monitors books, publishers, authors, and school districts for anything deemed "misinformation" and "misperceptions" of Islam and Muslims.  The institute also produces and distributes dawa booklets and videos.

In 2011 in the Newton, Massachusetts school district, the Muslim push came to a head.  Parents expressed concern about divergence from factual, objective accounts of history and current events, as well as one-sided materials designed to indoctrinate students in specific political agendas.  Research by Newton parents revealed that the concept of jihad was presented solely as an inner personal struggle of spiritual discipline and not the predominant, traditional obligation to wage war in Allah's name and bring the world under Islam.  Texts presented Islam as peaceful and tolerant.  Parents found that Islam received significantly more study time than was devoted to the avowed "false beliefs" of Christianity and Judaism.  Parental complaints about the controversial curriculum were characterized by school officials as "McCarthyesque."  School officials accused parents of jeopardizing academic freedom and defended the materials.

CAMERA examined the materials and concurred that textbooks and lesson plans focused on teaching students about Islam and presenting foundational Islamic beliefs, historical Islamic expansion, and the so-called Islamic "Golden Age."  Missing were negative aspects of Islamic history and societal practices, including the extensive and longstanding Arab-Muslim slave trade, honor killings, stoning of accused adulteresses, and treatment of women as property.  Muslim women were falsely claimed to have more autonomy than Western women, and extensive Muslim bigotry in the U.S. was presented.  Terrorism was falsely described as a deviation and misinterpretation of the tenets of the faith.  CAMERA published a monograph on its findings, further alarming parents with the many anti-American, anti-Judeo-Christian, pro-Islamic materials existent within the Newton school district.

Another Islamic indoctrination program, "Access Islam," has been instituted in various school systems nationwide.  Produced with assistance from Shabbir Mansuri, founding director of IRCV, and CAIR-affiliated Debbie Almontaser, and funded by the U.S. Department of Education, "Access Islam" teaches students how to follow the five pillars of Islam and instills the belief that Allah is G-d.  According to the Christian Action Network (CAN), students must learn and interpret verses from the Quran.  A video features a Christian convert to Islam who jubilantly explains how he now worships the one true G-d, in a direct slam against Christianity and Judaism.  Wherever "Access Islam" is presented, similar programs are not provided on Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, or any other religion.

All of the school programs cited above represent a multi-pronged approach to destroy Western civilization and impose an Islamist worldview through university endowments, educator indoctrination, and development of history textbooks and curricula for K-12 students.  Under the guise of teaching history and promoting multiculturalism, American students are indoctrinated in the supremacy of Islam above all other faiths.  In several cases, federal courts have upheld the right of public schools to indoctrinate students in the Muslim religion and its spiritual practices, categorically denying the same privilege to Christian doctrine.  In light of this doctrinal push, parents must be vigilant and steadfast as stewards of their children's educational and moral development.  Schools and administrators must be held accountable.

When President Trump recently presented the 2018 budget, he recognized Title VI as a vehicle to promote anti-American, anti-Israel, and pro-Islamic propaganda and eliminated its funding.  It remains to be seen if Congress implements his request and eliminates this insidious program.