‘Fake News’ Isn’t Just a Rightwing Problem

[Valin]

National Review:

The mainstream media is not entirely innocent of the propagation of gossip, rumors, and conspiracy theories.

ByIan Tuttle

November 25, 2016

 

Following Donald Trump’s upset victory earlier this month, the media has suddenly grown deeply troubled about the proliferation of “fake” news — gossip-mongering and fabrication and “news” reports devoid of a factual basis. Naturally, this brings us to Vox.com.

 

On Tuesday, the know-it-all whiz-kids that brought readers the Gaza Bridge published, “Democrats Won the Most Votes in the Election.

 

They Should Act Like It.,” a column by whiz-kid-in-chief Ezra Klein. “More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump. More Americans voted for Democratic Senate candidates than for Republican Senate candidates. So why aren’t Democrats acting like it?”

Presumably because those facts don’t mean what Klein thinks they mean.

 

(Snip)

 

Millions of rightwing partisans believe dumb things: that Barack Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim, for example, or that Hillary Clinton has secretly carried on a years-long lesbian romance with her aide-de-camp. Remember Operation Jade Helm? And, indeed, over the last year, InfoWars and the Drudge Report and Jim Hoft’s Gateway Pundit blog have all pulled in record amounts of traffic, despite peddling demonstrably untrue stories as cold, irrefutable fact.

 

But the Left has its own nonsense. How many liberals still believe that George W. Bush “stole” the 2000 presidential election? Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine, hardly a denizen of the fever swamps, was declaring the 2000 recount stolen as recently as last month. And if you want fever swamps, consider a 2006 Scripps Howard poll found that half more than half of registered Democrats believed George W. Bush was complicit in the September 11 terrorist attacks, with respondents split about evenly between calling Bush’s involvement “very likely” and “somewhat likely.”

 

There’s a connection between the two. As “elite” media figures know, stories — true and false — trickle down, implanting themselves in the minds of hundreds of thousands or millions of citizens too busy or too lazy to do their own research. When Vox writes, “The election probably wasn’t hacked. But Clinton should request recounts just in case,” it’s legitimizing a seed of doubt.

 

(Snip)

 

Where are the lines dividing “fake” news from real? Why was voter fraud a rightwing “conspiracy theory” when conservatives push it, but an urgent matter of electoral transparency now that it’s coming from liberals? Why are right-wingers fabulist nuts, but left-wingers devotees of triumphant Reason? And when Ezra Klein neglects the context that effectively invalidates his thesis, is it a mistake or a lie — or “fake” news?

 

A more responsible media wouldn’t create the confusion in the first place.

[Draggingtree]

Never mind Wisconsin. California’s Presidential vote must be disqualified

By DrJohn 15 Comments

Mon, Nov, 28th, 2016

2,835 views

 

In California illegal aliens are allowed to obtain driver’s licenses. Last year California passed a “motor voter” law. It stipulates that unless the applicant opts out, the applicant will automatically be added to the voter rolls. The potential for fraud is yuuge. Tens of thousands of dead people are on the voting roles, many… Read more »

http://www.floppingaces.net/2016/11/28/never-mind-wisconsin-californias-presidential-vote-must-be-disqualified/