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Right-Wing and Fake News Writers Are Now Going After Elon Musk (qz.com)
Fake news galvanized US president-elect Donald Trump's supporters, and sullied his enemies. Now it may be Elon Musk's turn. Quartz adds: The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has his fair share of detractors, but a new era in a public relations battle to discredit him appears to be taking shape. Bloomberg reports that hard-right groups are lining up to back misleading websites and fake journalists who attack Musk's business empire. Many of the attacks on Musk begin with something factual: His businesses were built, legally, with the help of billions in government contracts and incentives for renewable energy and space transport. But they go on to accuse Musk of fraud and wasting taxpayer dollars; some compare him to a convicted felon. At least three conservative sites have run negative pieces about Musk -- by a nonexistent writer named "Shepard Stewart" -- that include "Elon Musk Continues to Blow Up Taxpayer Money With Falcon 9" and "Elon Musk: Faux Free Marketeer and National Disgrace." Two later retracted the stories. "There's a very obvious precedent" for this, says Sam Jaffe, managing director of Cairn Energy Research Advisors. "That's Hillary Clinton." Musk tweeted this week, "Can anyone uncover who is really writing these fake pieces?"
Folks that can't stand reality conflicting with their hate-based fantasies.
The same argument applies far more to Lockheed with their joint smoking fighter. Instead of going after real waste these cowards are attacking the little kid in aerospace.
I'm not sure what the motivation is for these attacks. Musk hasn't been particularly political and mainly stayed out of this election. As far as I can tell, the primary motivations are one of two things. Either one, the people behind this are simply hateful and without a major target like Hillary must choose another, or two, they hate Musk because much of his work (electric cars, solar cells, even wanting to use methane for rockets because methane is a potentially renewable resource) has been to deal with issues related to global warming. If the second is the motivator, then it says something really fascinating: that there are elements of the right which not only are convinced that global warming is some sort of evil hoax, but that they actively hate people who disagree with them and are trying to take steps to destroy someone who is trying to help. If that's the case, it is truly a frightening example of the depth that people can sink to, and the levels they'll go to not just ignore facts they don't like but to actively try to harm people who try to deal with those factual issues.
I doubt this is about pushing any agenda, Fake news drives large amounts of hits/click bait, which in return drives advertising revenue. Their are people all over the world who have realised this and their entire job is to generate fake news, not for any agenda, simply profit. The more controversial and topical the more likely to earn money. Up until a few weeks ago it was all about Hillary and Trump, now they need to move on.
Did you really just point to two of the biggest fake news sites to use them as evidence that a fake person exists?
I think you missed the point of this whole "fake news" controversy. These twenty-something goofballs start a fake news site to make money off the alt-right, and alt-right news sites who don't do any fact checking immediately pick up the stories.
In the past few days, there have been several interesting interviews with some of the people who run fake news sites. The reason they say that fake news doesn't work on the Left will blow your mind.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You have to realize just how much the recent election shocked the shit out of the media. Wow, there is a whole world out there and they have NO IDEA what is going on. They have been living in a bubble and that bubble was burst, badly, on election night. They are deep hurting and this isn't any kind of fake crocodile tears hurt. It's for real and they are going to engage in the kind of defense mechanisms that humans engage in when they are hurt this badly.
So, what should their reaction be to the fact that the world doesn't conform to how they think? Take a long, hard look at themselves and change? Or double down, adopt a fortress mentality, and deny that there's anything wrong? Label these dissenting voices "fake news" and strive mightily the MSM's chief weapon, credibility, to discredit them.
If you just laughed at the idea that the mainstream media is credible after the shit they pulled in the election, then you know what I'm talking about. They were 100% backing Hillary and the whole world saw it. They had themselves convinced that she had a 93% chance of winning and they believed it. After a shock like that, who can blame them for reacting this way? They have a lot to lose. Not just their million dollar salaries, but their entire way of life and worldview is being threatened. Why not attack the truth-tellers? It has a chance of working, and anything's better than actually facing the cold hard truth. Facing the truth is last resort after everything else has failed and the MSM is a long way from that. They have powerful resources and are not about to give up.
Better to get your news on controversial topics from news sources like Infowars or Breitbart. These sites have a huuuuuge audience, larger than the mainstream media, and they report stories that the MSM refuses to cover. Think about it: when powerful people tell you to ignore news sources, what should you do? (A) Obey and be a good little drone. Or (B) take it as proof positive that these news sources are broadcasting very inconvenient narratives that they really don't want you to know. Hell, I used to think Alex Jones was a crazy man, but damn if they're trying to suppress him then he MUST be saying something important, otherwise he'd just be ignored! Read for yourself, evaluate for yourself, if you think they're full of shit that's your decision. But read them yourself, don't let the MSM tell you what's credible and what's not, because their credibility is bullshit! Make up your own mind!
One side says, "don't pay attention to those others, they're fake!" and the other side says, "consider us, we'll tell you things the other side is hiding, just make up your own mind." What do thinking people do in this situation?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Surely, it couldn't have been all of the FACTUAL information obtained from Hillary's email server, and the DNC's and Podesta's hacked accounts that "galvanized" the Trump supporters. And, of course, it couldn't have been Hillary's march toward globalization and the further degrading of US sovereignty. No, it was the FAKE NEWS boogeyman. OOoohhhh!
Here's a clue: Trump won the presidency because of the continued efforts of the leftist media to muddy the waters with lies, and play interference for Hillary. Welp, we don't like being lied to, and it was apparent where the lies were coming from and who they were meant to benefit. So, on election day, we said "FUCK YOU!" to the liars. We said "Fuck you" to the perpetually scandalous Hillary, and we said "FUCK OFF" to the infantile, shrill, triggered little assholes that continue to plague the streets in protest of the process they claim to support.
And now, as we repeatedly hear the drums of "fake news" and "hate speech" beat to the rhythm of the same lying lefty news orgs, we see it for what it is: an attempt to silence the voice of opposition. Racism, hate, white supremacy... it's so sad that these words have lost all meaning. These words call out ugly ideals and behavior, but the klaxon blowhards of the left have been crying wolf for too long. Now, it's time to eat crow, motherfuckers.
sig: sauer
Regardless of how you feel about tax subsidies for businesses, you can't fault Musk for taking them. I think corn subsidies in the US are stupid, but if I were a corn farmer, I guarantee I would take them, otherwise I would be at an unfair advantage.
Then why don't we have subsidies for tomatoes and carrots and spinach, you know, healthy foods. The corn subsidies are complete political payoffs to mid-western farmers -- the "rugged individual" rural folk who are over-represented in the Electoral college, Senate and House.
This is the kind of crazy that comes from existing in an echo chamber where everything good is left-wing and the right are scary enemies. It's self-reinforcing and is quite ignorant as well.
The entire space program was thoroughly right-wing and patriotic from the beginning. It was a giant dick-waving competition with the Soviet Union over who was better, communism or capitalism. The few leftists in the space program were engaged in trying to steal the tech and deliver it to the Soviets. Wehrner von Braun, the father of the Saturn V rocket, was a Nazi and you can't get more right-wing than that. Science and STEM occupations in general are regularly attacked by the left for being exclusionary, unwelcoming to women, and all of the other crimes that we know so well. Now suddenly the right can't do calculus?
The really crazy part is the sudden left-wing identification with weapons. The left has long been hoplophobic and now they suddenly overnight lost their fear of guns? These are people who won't even be in the same room if an unloaded pistol is lying on a table. They'll leave the building, it freaks them out.
You also notice in this post there is no difference made between the right wing (most people in America) and the alt.right (a few thousand people). They are put together in the same bucket so that the odious beliefs of the alt.right may contaminate the entire right. The principle is: add a thimble of wine to a gallon of sewage and you've got a gallon of sewage, but add a thimble of sewage to a gallon of wine and you've got a gallon of sewage. This is just plain ignorant, but it's the new philosophy of the ctrl.left and sadly it has a good chance of working.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The truth is that the vast mass of the public is stupid and taken in by false narratives. The mainstream media has been benefiting from this for decades. The fact that someone else cracked the code and found an alternative delivery system is the "problem" here, not the existence of dishonest media.
Jayson Blair. Dan Rather's "fake but true" documents. Brian Williams in general...the list goes on and on and on. Hell, Walter Cronkite was often giving out palpable untruths in regards Vietnam on the evening news when I was a kid. The problem then was that we didn't find out the stuff was actually untrue until 25 years later with the research tools available via the Internet.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Nowhere do you talk about what is actually true. Which means you're not particularly interested in what's true. You're only interested in putting every "point-of-view" on equal footing. Because after all, who are you gonna believe? The "failing" NY Times? Why not take brietbart seriously? It's much more emotionally satisfying.
Pointing out the fact that social media has become infected with weaponized viral click-bait is not a conspiracy of losers. It is exactly what all journalists do, which is to look into all the reasons why such a historic event took place. The fact that light is shined on such practices means journalism is still alive and well.
The internet is undermining our ability as citizens to discern fact from fiction without resorting to specialized research most do not have time for using tools most do not have. And BTW, yes fascists and fake news outlets are the enemy. Go look up who calls themselves alt-right. Or maybe you only read brietbart?
The people that starve won't be the folks that put Trump in power...
The people that will likely suffer the most under Trump are the working class people that voted for him. He plans to cut taxes on the wealthy, cut business taxes, and generally make taxes more regressive. If he starts a trade war, it will likely destroy more jobs than are created, and good paying jobs in high end manufacturing and technology, will be replaced by low wage jobs making the plastic junk that Walmart currently imports from China.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why people are in denial about Russia's involvement in attacking our electoral process.
Sure, you can find Macedonian teenagers, and idiots in California who claim that "only conservatives fall for fake news" and that it "doesn't work with liberals" (...) but that's a side show.
Start here, and read it until you grasp what is going on:
Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say
The flood of "fake news" this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.
Russia's increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human "trolls," and networks of websites and social-media accounts echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.
Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment, as an insurgent candidate harnessed a wide range of grievances to claim the White House. The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on "fake news," as they have vowed to do after widespread complaints about the problem.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Then continue here:
A collection of articles on Russia influence operations in the United States:
The threat from Russia
22 Oct 2016
How to contain Vladimir Putins deadly, dysfunctional empire
FOUR years ago Mitt Romney, then a Republican candidate, said that Russia was Americas number-one geopolitical foe. Barack Obama, among others, mocked this hilarious gaffe: The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the cold wars been over for 20 years, scoffed the president. How times change. With Russia hacking the American election, presiding over mass slaughter in Syria, annexing Crimea and talking casually about using nuclear weapons, Mr Romneys view has become conventional wisdom. Almost the only American to dissent from it is todays Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
http://www.economist.com/news/...
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Belching smoke through the Channel, Russian aircraft carrier so unreliable it sails with its own breakdown tug
22 Oct 2016
The ageing Russian aircraft carrier that sailed through the English Channel escorted by the Royal Navy has been plagued by years of technical problems and is accompanied everywhere by a tug in case it breaks down.
The plumbing is so bad on the 55,000 ton Admiral Kuznetsov that many of its toilets cannot be used, while it has had repeated problems with its power and a string of accidents, naval experts said.
The Soviet-era warship is leading a flotilla of eight naval vessels to the eastern Mediterranean, where its aircraft are expected to join a renewed assault on the rebel-held city of Aleppo.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
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Yes, 17 intelligence agencies really did say Russia was behind hacking
21 Oct 2016
Donald Trump