Fake News, Real Facts

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Gene Howington
Stephen Colbert Image: (c) Montclair Film Festival

Stephen Colbert
Image: (c) Montclair Film Festival

submitted by Gene Howington

Score one for truthiness!

“According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, viewers of The Colbert Report who watched Colbert set up a super PAC and 501(c)(4) organization during the last presidential election cycle were better informed about campaign financing and the role of money in politics than viewers of actual news channels and other, actual-news shows.

‘It’s the first study actually showing that Colbert is doing a better job than other news sources at teaching people about campaign financing,’ crowed Bruce W. Hardy, lead author of the study and a senior researcher at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. ‘Consistently, we found that Colbert did better than every other news source we included in our model.’

The published study tested The Colbert Report against CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and broadcast nightly news — as well as talk radio and newspapers –  as sources of political information. The study, appropriately called Stephen Colbert’s Civics Lesson, was based on phone survey data from 1,232 adults 18 years or older who were interviewed between December 13-23, 2012.

Watching The Colbert Report not only increased people’s perceptions that they knew more about political financing, but significantly increased their actual knowledge, and did so at a greater rate than other news sources, the study found. Reading daily newspapers, listening to talk radio, and watching Fox News Channel increased knowledge about super PACs and 501(c)(4)s — but “to a lesser degree,” the study concluded.

[. . .]

Colbert did better than any actual news source at teaching, Hardy said, because he walked viewers through the process of creating a super PAC, with every episode a continuation of that story, and because he used humor and satire, which other news sources seldom use — or seldom use intentionally, at any rate.”

Read the whole story at www.deadline.com.

Posted in Campaign Finance, Corruption, Education, Media, United States | 10 Comments

“Learn to Speak Benghazi”—A Mark Fiore Political Cartoon Video

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

SUBMITTED BY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Mark Fiore suggests that people should “think again” if they had thought that the tragedy that occurred in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2102, was a thing of the past. He said that House Republicans have been “falling over themselves to rev up the scandal machine in an attempt to sink Obama, but more importantly, stop Hillary Clinton’s march to the White House.” He added that Republicans are raring “to fire up the ol’ Congressional investigation machine once again.” Fiore said that he supports the investigation of government wrongdoing—but he think this new investigation “reeks of nothing but political theater.”

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Eric Shinseki, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Politics, and War

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

VeteransAffairs LogoSUBMITTED BY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Last Friday, Charles P. Pierce posted a column at Esquire’s Politics Blog about the resignation of General Eric Shinseki and the “unfolding scandal” at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Pierce wrote:

And thus ends the honorable career of a soldier who was correct about the lies behind the greatest policy disaster of our times, about the essential criminality of the people who launched the invasion of Iraq, but whose primary failures as an administrator were his inability to oversee the people in his department who were directly trying to cope with the flood of casualties that resulted from all of those soldiers that most of official Washington told Eric Shinseki they would never need to create a democratic paradise in Iraq. Irony is the rail on which Shinseki now has been ridden out of town.

Eric Shinseki

Eric Shinseki

In his Esquire article titled The Problem Isn’t the VA or Eric Shinseki, Pierce tells about one of his first jobs in his profession. He said it “was covering the Vietnam veterans movement as they tried to get the various veterans organizations, including the VA, to pay attention to things like PTSD and the longterm effects of Agent Orange.” He said the Vietnam vets “spoke with contempt of the World War II veterans who staffed those organizations, scoffing at what they called ‘the Class of ’45’ for the way those veterans looked down on them because they had ‘lost’ their war.” He added that the people who were “most willing to help were the scattered remnants of the antiwar movement — like the people who ran the GI coffeehouses and, I guess, people like us in the alternative press.” Pierce said that he recalled “vivdly” the Vietnam vets’ “anger at the Reagan Administration when it proposed to close down the psychiatric outreach centers that they had fought so hard to include under the VA system.” Pierce claims that that was his introduction “to the vast gap between the political rhetoric about America’s veterans and how they actually are treated.” Pierce’s best source in the Vietnam vet community told him one day, “I got a hundred stories. Which one do you want?” Pierce said that two years later his source “took his M-1 into a closet and only the rifle came out.”

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Posted in Politics, Ronald Reagan, United States, US Military, War | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

NOTICE: Revisions of About/Contact Page and Blog Policy

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Gene Howington

The About/Contact Page has been changed to reflect the ongoing policy of this blog.  Changes read as follows:

This Blog

The purpose of this blog is to discuss current issues, law, politics, culture, philosophy, science, art or whatever catches the interests of the authors posting columns here. Sometimes we are looking for the best ideas to address the problems facing the modern world, sometimes we are just sharing things we have a passion for or simply just like and find interesting.

You may contact the Editor/Authors of FFS via e-mail at ffseditors@hush.com.

If you wish to contact a specific Editor/Author, please put their name in the subject line of the e-mail and it will be forwarded to them.

If you are writing to complain about jonathanturley.org (or any other blog for that matter), read “NOTICE: In re Res Ipsa Loquitur (jonathanturley.org)” before submission. It summarizes the policy of this blog regarding not just that particular blog, but other blogs in general. (Short version: They are not our problem.)

Posted in FFS Update(s) | Comments Off on NOTICE: Revisions of About/Contact Page and Blog Policy

The Power Of Editing: Wikipedia

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Gene Howington

submitted by Gene Howington

Excerpt from fivethirtyeight.com’s “The 100 Most-Edited Wikipedia Articles” by Mona Chalabi:

“George W. Bush has been by far the most contested article among Wikipedia editors: Through September 2013, the page had been revised 45,273 times. That’s three revisions for every word in the article.

Not surprisingly, Bush isn’t the only political figure to attract factual controversy. The Wikipedia entry on Barack Obama has been revised 23,514 times — just slightly ahead of Adolf Hitler (23,499 revisions). Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton all make it into the top 100 (Sarah Palin falls just short, in 104th place).

Articles on religion, including Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muhammed, or about specific countries, such as the United States and Israel, attract plenty of revisions. More surprising, however, is that World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) features in more revised articles than any other single body — seven — and is responsible for the second-most-revised article: list of WWE personnel.

Does all this reflect how controversial some topics are in society at large, or merely which topics are most contested by the people who edit Wikipedia? I had a strong suspicion it was mostly the latter (although I didn’t think the typical Wikipedia volunteer would also be a big WWE enthusiast), but it’s difficult to know.” [emphasis added]

Click the article’s title above to read the rest of the article and see the graphic.

Tell us what you think.

Note: This article relates to the forthcoming installment in the Propaganda Series, “Propaganda 200: In Summation, Gist The Whitewashing Power Of Editing”.

Posted in Free Speech, Media, Politics, Propaganda, Society, Technology | 2 Comments

“Anthem For Doomed Youth”: A Poem by Wilfred Owen Read by Kenneth Branagh

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro
Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen

SUBMITTED BY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Anthem for Doomed Youth was written by Wilfred Owen in 1916, when he was a patient at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, recovering from shell shock.

 

 

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, War, World History, World War I | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Memorial Day

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Gene Howington

by GENE HOWINGTON

Today is Memorial Day. Some, especially those who have served or have had loved ones in the service, treat it as one of the biggest holidays of the year.  To many, it is simply a three day weekend and an excuse to go get drunk at the lake. Some may find the holiday jingoistic, militaristic and hollow. I tend to look at it as a way to promote pacifism. This may seem counter-intuitive, so let me explain. I’ll be quoting quite of bit from one of our greatest generals and a far better than average President, Dwight D. Eisnehower, and I’ll start with this:

“I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.”

Eisenhower lived in a time where we were on the cusp of technology marking the transition from cavalry to tanks and air superiority, from the horrible but limited capacities of chemical weapons to the potential global killing capacities of nuclear weapons. He was one of the first of what we would now consider modern soldiers. He was also one of the wisest.

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

To me, this is the true essence of pacifism. It is a common misconception that being a pacifist means you are totally non-violent and for some practitioners that is their chosen path. That is I think an unrealistic proposition. Sometimes violence is necessary such as it can be in self-defense and the defense of others. It is serious business. As a person and as a nation, we should be ready for it and willing to commit violence when necessary.  One can be a pacifist without being a doormat to the aggression of others. To me, being a pacifist means being committed to trying every possible peaceful solution before resorting to violence. In this regard, Eisenhower – one of the truly great strategists and tacticians of World War II – was both a pacifist and a soldier. The two seemingly disparate states of being are not mutually exclusive. It is an integrated understanding of the maxim of Sun Tzu when he said, “For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”

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Posted in Dwight D. Eisenhower, Energy Policy, Fascism, Fascists/Corporatists, Foreign Policy, Free Speech, Government, Imperialism, Iraq, Justice, United States, US Army, US Military, USAF, USCG, USMC, USN, Vietnam, War, World War II | 7 Comments

The Twelfth Post in the “Oh My Achin’ Head” Series: Florida State Representative Warns That the Company Hired to Create New Common Core Standardized Tests for the State Promotes Homosexuality

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro
Florida State Rep. Charles Van Zandt Sr.

Florida State Rep. Charles Van Zant Sr.

BY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Last November, I wrote a column for Res Ipsa Loquitor on the subject of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Common Core standards. It appears that Duncan was unhappy with critics of Common Core and made remarks before a group of superintendents that came back to haunt him.

Arne Duncan:

“It’s fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were, and that’s pretty scary. You’ve bet your house and where you live and everything on, ‘My child’s going to be prepared.’ That can be a punch in the gut.”

I responded to Duncan in my post at RIL:

A punch in the gut, you say? Here’s one right back at ya, Arne. Lots of people aren’t ecstatic about the “common core” effort to standardize curricula across this country and to institutionalize a “one-size-fits-all” cookie cutter approach to educating our children. It isn’t just “white suburban moms” who aren’t happy with the Common Core standards.  There are myriad others who are also concerned about the them—including other parents who don’t belong to the cohort of “white suburban moms,” school administrators, teachers, other education experts, child development experts—as well as a number of liberals AND conservatives.

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Posted in Education, Education Policy, Politics, States | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

Koch Brothers Exposed: Robert Greenwald’s “Chilling” Updated Documentary about Charles and David Koch

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

SUBMITTED BY ELAINE MAGLIARO

According to Democracy Now!, Republicans don’t want people to see Robert Greenwald’s “chilling” updated documentary about Charles and David Koch—two of the world’s richest men. Democracy Now! reported earlier today that this past Monday “Republican Rep. Candice Miller of Michigan tried to block an event at the Capitol unveiling the film, “Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition.” She claimed that the documentary film “could violate House rules and “‘cross the line into partisan politics.’” Evidently, Miller unsuccessfully argued “that showing the documentary was an inappropriate use of taxpayer-funded facilities.” The film event proceeded as planned on Tuesday. The updated documentary is said to reveal “how the Koch brothers have used their vast fortunes to oppose government programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, as well as obstruct efforts to raise the minimum wage, tackle climate change and expand voting rights.”

KOCH BROTHER EXPOSED 2014 [OFFICIAL TRAILER]

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Posted in Big Oil, Libertarians, Oligarchy, Politics, Propaganda, United States | Tagged , | 4 Comments

“Do It Again!”

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Gene Howington

Submitted by pete, long time friend of the blog, the following video can make you smile for a lot of reasons . . .

Thanks for sharing, pete!  And for tangentially proving my point that golf is a lot like fetch without a dog.

Posted in Humor, Short Video | 3 Comments