US Politics Mega-thread - Page 60

The United States' largest owner of television stations, Sinclair Broadcast Group, mandated that its outlets run a segment on the so-called deep state that was produced by a former reporter for the Russian propaganda outlet RT, according to a new report.

The "must-run" piece aired on March 21 and featured Sebastian Gorka, the former adviser to President Donald Trump, lamenting the existence of a deep state—a popular conspiracy theory in some circles that longtime career public servants in the government are working to subvert the U.S. government. Trump has repeatedly complained about such a mysterious rogue network.

Sinclair national correspondent Kristine Frazao produced the segment. Before joining Sinclair in 2013, she was an anchor/correspondent at RT, formerly Russia Today, for more than three years, according to her LinkedIn page. RT is an international television network funded by the Russian government. The Columbia Journalism Review called it "the Kremlin's propaganda outlet."

On March 31 2018 14:58 Kyadytim wrote:
www.newsweek.com
Seeing as I was warned for my sarcastic commentary on the last article I shared, here is an extremely brief summary (5 words or less):
Conservative media overlaps Russian propaganda.


Also of possible interest:
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/979911066900672512
Pizzagate 2.0 goes plaid.

On the other hand, Sinclair Broadcasting, the conservative media group that Trump's FCC let go over the limit on consolidation, has helped this sort of conspiracy thinking along by hiring a Russian propaganda alumnus to write a segment on the deep state and then forced all of their stations to run it.

On March 31 2018 13:06 A3th3r wrote:


I disagree that Bolton was chosen because he seems to (mostly) agree with Trump's policies for the most part - he was chosen because he is the guy for the job. The guy is in a news representative job & contact with the media is part of that package.

The US is still in Iraq but they are trying to get them to manage themselves & take care of their own internal affairs themselves. That being said, it seems that there is a sort of "Kurdistan state" in the northern part of Iraq & "Shiite Iraq" in the east. That leaves "Sunni Iraq" in the west. I believe that Iran has no issue with things being that way in Iraq because they have a vested interest in there being another stable nation-state in the region that is a oil exporting player in OPEC that is on their side. By the way, as a point of fact, the US has been in Afghanistan for FIFTEEN years, basically not doing anything but shipping troops out there for a few tours then sending them back to come home. Is that a sensible use of money to have troops in the middle east in TWO countries? I'm not sure. It seems like a complete waste of money to me. I learned about the middle east situation at as a student at ASU

The US took out Saddam Hussein in Iraq because they invaded Kuwait, who they considered an ally at that time. Now, Iraq is in a state of disarray, so, that's what they get, I guess.

On March 31 2018 20:52 Mercy13 wrote:


You might want to take a second look at what you wrote there, I’m having trouble figuring it out.

Anyway I wasn’t joking about why Trump tapped Bolton for National Security Advisor. Most of their policy views are inconsistent, and in particular Trump was highly critical of the Iraq war after the fact whereas Bolton thinks the war (which he helped to engineer in part by politicizing the intellegence process) was a great idea.

Rather, Trump chose Bolton because he likes watching Fox News, and he likes it when people say nice things about him On Fox News. This is the same reason Larry Kudlow is the new Director of the NEC.

On April 01 2018 07:06 A3th3r wrote:


I thought it was pretty clear that Fox News has a bit of a conservative bent to them, whereas MSNBC tends to lean liberal, generally. These news organizations do try to maintain their neutrality on their stances on various topics, but the positions & views of the "head honchos" of the organizations do come through in terms of how the "rank & file" people think. There's just no way around that so the only thing is to just accept that & just go with the two-party system that exists in America. That being said, in America there are elections every four years that matter & the results do count. Similarly, in France, Emmanuel Macron was elected as a bit of a "firebrand" who was going to shake things up a bit & get the people excited about politics again - and he has succeeded at doing that to some degree. He does not seem to consider Turkey to be liberal enough or cosmopolitan enough to succeed, however. I guess Macron reprimanded the Turks for their actions against the Kurdish ethnic group.

http://www.france24.com/en/20180331-france-turkey-macron-kurds-erdogan-syria-ypg-manbij-crossed-line

On April 01 2018 07:39 Mercy13 wrote:


What does that have to do with Trump’s reasoning for hiring a guy known for manipulating intelligence for political reasons into a position which is responsible for delivering unbiased intelligence assessments? Or did you want to discuss something else?

On April 01 2018 08:46 A3th3r wrote:


I guess I don't care why he hired this guy or that guy except that they have positions in the cabinet that they need filled & so it is good that they have made progress on that. That being said, I hope that Bolton doesn't just become a "soundbite guy" who provides the national news media with sound bites that they can talk about on their news programs for an hour or two every day or every few days.

I guess Trump is now considered insufficiently conservative to the Koch brothers, who are big donors to their favorite political candidates year after year.
https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/11/30/44-trump-administration-officials-have-close-ties-koch-brothers-public-citizen
I'm not too sure how much that will impact things on the national stage but I guess this is their time to shine in terms of there is a Republican in the Oval Office now so they should try to capitalize on that as far as the hot button issues that they are trying to see some change on.

On April 01 2018 09:03 zlefin wrote:

why not care about the quality of the people hired?
just because the positions need filling doesn't mean you should just put anyone in; you should put in the best people for the job. and the opinions and views of the people put in will have a considerable effect on the world through the policies they put in.

On April 01 2018 09:20 A3th3r wrote:


I'd like to say that it is important the name of the person who has the job but I guess I should qualify that & say that it matters and it doesn't matter. I guess that it matters because you want a person with a name filling that role. It doesn't matter because what you're looking for as president is a person to complete a specific task for you. Hiring & firing people is fairly easy because there are a lot of people who need jobs but only a few people who provide jobs. That's pretty steady in any profession.

Trump is hiring & firing people to help out in the Oval Office for a few years in a public service sector job where the pay is reasonably good but not better than what the Fortune 500 would give. Therefore, he will get the civil servants that "aren't good enough" for the Fortune 500 but are better than the people who work for the accountant in the office attached to the gas station near my workplace. I'm sorry if this is offensive but work in politics pays alright but isn't spectacular so there are "shining star" type guys who just aren't going to do it because they can do better in the Fortune 500 or on their own.

On April 01 2018 09:44 zlefin wrote:

there can still be substantial variation in the quality of the person selected though. no matter what skill level you're at there's quite a bit of variation, and if a boss is hiring people considerably worse than could be gotten for the position, isn't that a problem?
and these positions aren't exactly simple "do a task" positions, they're quite a bit more complex than that, and involve a lot of decision making. it's not just simply following orders straightforwardly, there's a great deal of implementation details to work out.

On April 01 2018 09:49 A3th3r wrote:


For sure, but, even with that in mind, there are a lot of people who do have the know how & decision making prowess to do all of that. I know a lot of people with college degrees who are unemployed! Just sayin'. Skills are nice but there are plenty of people who have skills but don't have jobs. Generally there is plenty of talented folks who want to work for someone else but there are only a few people who are hiring & firing other people that are available. That's just how it goes. Trump is filling out his cabinet with reasonably qualified people who are willing to take a pay cut to do the work or are seeking a politics job as a "passion project" & they really believe in what they do. That's good, that's great, the US Government needs that, that's an important thing. Not everybody is a college grad with a lot of spare cash to just spend on random business endeavors for fun.

On April 01 2018 10:09 zlefin wrote:

are you aware that trump has hired several people who are not reasonably qualified for their positions?
and just because he finds some people, doesn't mean there weren't numerous better people available.
I think you overestimate how common the skillset is to do management at a high level effectively; and you may underestimate the value of havin the best people you can get for the job, rather than simply somebody passable.
also consider the effect of small benefits: if a position oversees a budget of tens of billions of dollars a year, even a small improvement in the quality of the person holding the position can have a considerable impact.

On April 01 2018 10:32 A3th3r wrote:


I think that people over estimate the difficulty & danger of hiring & firing folks because they are poor. That's ok, there are lots of poor people who can't afford to do anything. That being said, there are a number of rich people in this world who do exist and are able to "waste" their money on business endeavors at will. That does happen to include USA President Donald Trump, who currently holds the top Oval Office job & is in for the duration of his tenure. In the US, that tenure is four years. Generally, people who are interested in politics tend to be the folks who are really fired up about it, & that is a useful characteristic for a commander-in-chief to have. OR (can't forget) for a middle-management-type guy who is a subordinate to the commander in chief!

In other news, I guess Trump is betting big on the economy here & is trying to revitalize things a bit & get people feisty about politics again. That's a good thing, I suppose. I continue to wish that he were a little bit more suave about what he did & was a little bit less of a firebrand, but, that's just what he does, I guess! It's kind of tiresome at times. At times I miss the Obama Administration's "behind the scenes" approach to governance.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/trump-is-betting-everything-on-the-economy/article/2012133

On April 01 2018 11:07 Plansix wrote:
https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/980175772206993409

This video is striking. People should be very concerned about the Sinclair Broadcast Group and their efforts to control local media. I am surprised how obvious the effort to push this narrative is.

How exactly does this happen? And why does it keep happening?

The answer is one of the little-known facts about “local” TV news: In some instances it isn’t local at all.

The “salty” story was produced by an “affiliate service,” CNN Newsource, and syndicated to dozens of stations around the country. Stations not only get prepackaged footage from such services, but a script that introduces the footage, as well. Stations then “localize” the canned package by having one of their anchors read the one-size-fits-all copy.

Viewers typically have no idea that a seemingly local story has come from a centralized source in New York, Los Angeles or, in this case, Washington. The CNN Newsource story, for example, doesn’t mention CNN Newsource or CNN, its parent company. The reporter on the story simply signed off, “In Washington, I’m Karin Caifa.” (Caifa and CNN Newsource were also behind the widely played story about “social networking” for dogs via a Web site that connects pet owners.)

CBS’s affiliate service, called CBS Newspath, produced a piece last year about Conan O’Brien that became raw material for another clip job on Conan’s show. The story was about O’Brien’s plan to be the officiant in the marriage of a same-sex couple on his program. More than a dozen stations ran the story with the same scripted intro from the CBS service: “Conan O’Brien may be about to push the envelope on late-night television.”