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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.
Wait - not everything on the Internet is true?
to collect all of the bullshit into one post so the grownups don't have to waste time wondering what the hate groups are spewing.
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.
WTF? Didn't you guys get the memo? Fake news was last week. This week it's hacked voting booths. Next week will be hacked fake news sites. Week after we will be voting for fake new hackers (they're actually middle aged).
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.
I am a right winger. We like Elon Musk. He produces a quality product at a decent price. He is against over regulation in his industry. This fucking epidemic of stories about fake news this week is ridiculous. The Liberal media lost big, predicting a Hillary landslide, and they NEED a scapegoat to blame for their own idiocy. Trust in the media is at an all time low, and people aren't fooled by the MSM putting on a different hat and calling themselves "impartial fact-checkers" anymore. So the new plan is to declare any website we don't like as "fake news" and tie them into the other demonized group we made up, the "alt right". They are the enemy and they must be stopped.
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.
Musk has flaws and his businesses have flaws, but they should be faced and corrected. There is no use for a smear campaign, or for ass-kissing on the other end.
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!
It's a bit much to assume that none of the scientists and engineers are conservative. That's like "all blacks ____", "all Muslims ___", etc.
Fascists are still worse. And, there is no evidence of any "leftist" conspiracy outside of your padded room.
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
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 th doing it. Alsoey say that fake news doesn't work on the Left will blow your mind.
I heard about this story yesterday on NPR, about an alt-right fake-news writer living in Los Angeles.
TL/DR: Jestin Coler (the fake-news writer) claimed that he does it to show how easily hoodwinked people are by fake news, but when pressed, he admitted he could make lots of money doing this. A few interesting quotes from his interview:
The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.
[...]
We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Damn, the denial is strong with you. You just tried to discredit original research. Do you even realize how denialist that is? If doing your own research isn't good enough, then damn what is?
Did you even read the article? Please do, it's important. The subject admits he's a leftist and confirms he's running a false flag operation. Read the whole thing from top to bottom, it is well worth five minutes of your (and everyone else's) time. Especially read the byline.
By Laura Sydell
NPR
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The fact that you seem to see the world as "everything good comes from the left, and everything bad comes from the right" is proof that you've already been trained to think what you're told to think and never question it. If you truly think the world is so cut and dry, you are a fool.
It's two step program: 1. publish a fake story that the alt-right will pick up and amplify. 2. Denounce the alt-right for believing the story. The problem is that step 2 appears to be missing.
The interesting thing about that story is that the only source of information that it is a leftist plot comes from the man who publishes lies for a living.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
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.
I've noticed over the last 15 years that news reporting appears to deliberately incite rage in it's consumers. I conclude the reason is because happy news doesn't cause interaction that can be measured, while outrage causes people to post comments, link, and send to friends. These actions can be tracked, and if it can be tracked, it can be monetized. An example is Info Wars site. Most of their news is extremely slanted and almost seems to jerk the froth out of their average reader's mouth, while simultaneously reporting things dishonestly. When one bothers to fact check and independently confirm their stories, it is my opinion that they are almost without exception false to fact or put in the worst light possible. Nor is it confined to such fringe lunatic sites, this is found in Fox, Breitbart, Drudge, and to a lessor extent in CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, PBS, and NPR.
TL;DR: News is worthless. They all have an agenda and they all push it.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Care to demonstrate any FAKE news from NY Times?
They have made mistakes (Judith Miller and WMD for example) and issued retractions and apologies
Not Fox
Not newsmax
Not Freerepublic
Not Infowars
Not Limbaugh
Not Beck
That is what separates the real from the illusion
A total lack of accountability
We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.
This sounds a little too exactly-what-liberals-want-to-think-about-themselves. I would be really surprised if this is true.
I don't believe it was the liberal media who outed Sean King. The fact that he's still quoted a lot by liberals kinda belies that bolded text.
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.
In case you missed it, NPR tracked down a major source of fake news
That is, a left-wing agitator produces large amounts of right wing bullshit online and then left-wing media use that to support their view that there is a massive problem with fake news and "alt-right" views.
This is similar to to the fake post-election hate-crime-wave that we are supposedly experiencing, and to the death threats people fake on Twitter. The left wing outrage machinery is largely fed by self-created fake stories.
Welcome to Corporate America. In Argentina we have elected a guy who convinced everyone he wasn't going to pass the crisis down to the lower classes, and amid his first government actions he cut the export taxes to mining down to Zero, penalized the unions by pushing a tax reform which makes you pay more if you negotiate a raise above their projecred inflación numbers (which are obviously rigged downwards), and criminalizes social protest. Whatever USA gets in terms of asymetrical social growth, It has been tester in Latin America previously.
Why are they attacking him? Because he is an agent of change. And the only change they want is to return to a past that never was.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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/...
---
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...
---
Yes, 17 intelligence agencies really did say Russia was behind hacking
21 Oct 2016
Donald Trump
Wehrner von Braun, the father of the Saturn V rocket, was a Nazi and you can't get more right-wing than that.
Wehrner von Braun, the father of the Saturn V rocket, was apolitical. That doesn't make him a good person, but he was willing to make rockets for anyone who would help him build a rocket that would go into space.
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.
Lots of us liberals have been gun owners since forever. Gun ownership is a liberal value. A lot of fake-ass liberals who are actually neocons have been trying to convince us otherwise for decades, hypocrites like Barbara Feinstein who carried a purse gun (and probably still does, but in any case she is guarded by criminals with guns) while simultaneously claiming that no private citizen should own a gun at all.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The facts are quite clear: Tesla and Solar City only exist because of the massive subsidies they have received. Are those subsidies justified? Should they continue? Some people apparently do not want to have this discussion.
These same subsidies are available to others, yet no others are doing what Musk is doing. Why not? If this is just free money, as is often claimed, why aren't others lining up for it?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Because he's doing new things and hiring people while they're doing old things and laying people off. They lack the drive, vision, or indeed ability to do what he is doing, and they don't want their asses kicked, so they are doing their best to keep him down not through competition since they are not competitive, but through skullduggery.
So he's just a new cult of personality figure to replace Jobs. Got it.
You don't get to say "got it" when you clearly don't get it.
Does nothing except grabbing taxpayer money and selling overpriced gadgets, is praised as a "visionary" in useless tabloids and by mouthbreathing "geeks".
He's not grabbing taxpayer money, it's being given to him because he's making changes which we find desirable. Those 'overpriced gadgets' are selling as fast as he can produce them, which proves that they are not overpriced. And he's substantially reduced the cost-to-orbit, which benefits everyone, even you.
I can see why you didn't log in. I'd be afraid to associate your ridiculous ideas with an identity, as well. If you did that, you'd be laughed out of the room every time you posted.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
NYT executive editor Dean Baquet recently released a letter to its readers on the subject of rededicating itself to truth, and you can't rededicate yourself to something you are already dedicated to, and I quote:
"As we reflect on this week's momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you." - Dean Baquet, Executive Editor, New York Times.
NYT is a bunch of biased fucks, but they've pathetically admitted it and promised not to do it any more. They did this because subscriptions started to plummet when its readers found out how big of a circle-jerk fantasy their reporting was about the election. Its damage control, and an empty promise. They've rededicated themselves to pretending they are honest for a moment.
"His name was James Damore."
Maybe, just maybe, it would be useful to reconsider these incidents with the point of view that it's *never* right for a police officer to kill a person. That can't be correct - I understand. But it's a good starting point. Then in each case ask whether the police used lethal force to prevent further lethal violence, which is just about the only reason I see to authorize it.
Out.
The people that will likely suffer the most under Trump are the working class people that voted for him.
But they didn't, that's a myth. The median income of Trump voters was $10,000 higher than Clinton voters. Only a very loud, very ignorant, yet minuscule minority of working class people voted for Trump, especially given the low overall turnout. The majority of working class people didn't bother to vote. They didn't see any point to it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"