January 24, 2017

Debate Over Whether Networks Should Stop Interviewing Kellyanne Conway

Kellyanne Conway is a very polarizing figure in the media landscape. She is both renowned and reviled for her ability to spin absolutely anything Donald Trump does into a positive. Saturday Night Live regularly guts her for it, but now, so, too, does everyone else. What was a semi-respectable skill during the election is now a terrifying White House reality for reporters who value the truth.

Today, GQ reported that New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen has suggested simply not interviewing Conway anymore. During a recent podcast appearance, he said this:

[T]he logic is, this is a representative of the president. This is somebody who can speak for the Trump administration. But if we find that what Kellyanne Conway says is routinely or easily contradicted by Donald Trump, then that [rationale for interviewing her] disappears. Another reason to interview Kellyanne Conway is, our viewers want to understand how the Trump world thinks. But if the end result of an interview with her is more confusion about what the Trump world thinks, then that rationale evaporates … No, it’s not just lying or spin or somebody who is skilled in the political arts of putting the best case on things or not answering a question, which is a pretty basic method of doing politics. It’s that when you are done listening to Kellyanne Conway, you probably understand less. That’s a problem.

Lots of journalists are on-board with his suggestion.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/there-is-debate-over-whether-networks-should-stop-interviewing-conway-altogether/

January 23, 2017

Americans Worried About Fascism

Fascism and fact were among the top searches for words in the past 24 hours, Merriam-Webster said.

Germany’s Nazis were famous for the big lie propaganda technique: If something is said often enough, people will believe it. It was the underpinning of Adolf Hitler’s regime and the Holocaust.

Americans appear to be worried something akin may be happening here if dictionary searches are any indication.

Merriam-Webster reports more people are looked up fascism than any other word in the past 24 hours, and that’s been the case for the past several months.

Other top words Sunday included feminism, torchbearer and fact, the latter defined as “a piece of information presented as having objective reality.”

Those in charge of social media at the respected dictionary appeared to take a poke at senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, who Sunday denied presidential press secretary Sean Spicer lied about the size of the crowd that had witnessed President Donald Trump’s inauguration, saying the administration was presenting “alternative facts.”

The term “the big lie” was coined by Hitler in “Mein Kampf” but perfected by his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the state to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the state,” Goebbels said.

Lookups for feminism — “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” — and torchbearer — “someone in the forefront of a campaign, crusade, or movement” — spiked Sunday, a day after hundreds of thousands of people participated in the Women’s March in Washington and companion marches across the country and around the world.

January 22, 2017

Is the New Star Really a Sign of a Messiah for Israel?

Humans across the world will get to see a star born in 2022, and one rabbi says it’s a sign from the Bible of a new military leader for Israel.

January 22, 2017

Support PolitiFact: Join the Truth Squad

http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspective/support-politifact-join-the-truth-squad/2310156

January 21, 2017

St. Peterburg's women's march quickly gained momentum

ST. PETERSBURG — It started with a Facebook post in mid-December. Days later, a handful of activists were brainstorming in 80-year-old Suzanne Benton's living room. Now it has the potential to be the largest protest in city history.

When a group of strangers first started organizing a local protest to coincide with the Women's March on Washington on Saturday — a massive demonstration set to take place in the nation's capitol the day after President Trump's inauguration — they weren't expecting more than a few hundred people.

"We thought at that time it would be perfectly fine if we didn't get a stage at all and just pulled a pick-up truck and someone stood in the bed of it and talked into a microphone," said Amy Weintraub, who serves on the march's steering committee.

But then attendance at the organizational meetings grew by the dozens. By Friday, more than 17,000 people had registered to attend the St. Petersburg march for women's and human rights set to start at noon at Demens Landing Park.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/from-facebook-to-thousands-st-peterburgs-womens-march-quickly-gained/2310242

January 21, 2017

Sign up to stay in touch with Barack Obama

https://act.barackobamafoundation.org/page/signup/keep-in-touch?utm_medium=email&utm_source=wh&utm_campaign=20170118_WH&source=20170118_WH

January 20, 2017

George Soros calls Trump a 'would-be dictator' who 'is going to fail'

George Soros thinks President-elect Donald Trump will fail — and that will be just fine with the billionaire investor and supporter of progressive causes.

"I personally am convinced that he is going to fail," Soros told Bloomberg during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Failure will come "not because of people like me who would like him to fail, but because his ideas that guide him are inherently self-contradictory and the contradictions are already embodied by his advisors."

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/19/george-soros-calls-donald-trump-a-would-be-dictator-who-is-going-to-fail.html

January 20, 2017

Inaugural Balls Bring Together Politicians And The Corporations That Can Pay For Them

Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil and Lyft are just a few of those sponsoring the parties.

SNIP

Oil and gas companies looking for significant rollbacks of environmental regulation from both Congress and the Trump administration are among the most notable funders of inauguration festivities.

Chevron
The American subsidiary of BP
American Petroleum Institute

Automakers Ford, Honda and Toyota


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-inaugural-balls-corporate-sponsors_us_5881422ee4b0e3a7356821cc?hpadngh2castnjyvi

January 19, 2017

Gun-control advocates push for tougher laws

TALLAHASSEE — Since the summer shooting that devastated Latin night at Pulse, an Orlando gay nightclub, state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith has worn a rainbow-patterned ribbon on his lapel.

It's a physical reminder of 49 lives lost seven months ago in the worst mass shooting this country has seen, an event that led Smith, who is gay and Latino, to focus on gun control in his first campaign for the Florida House of Representatives.

"I see a Florida, a safer Florida, where there are fewer guns because only the more responsible, law-abiding gun owners are allowed to possess those weapons and they can only possess certain kinds of weapons to protect themselves," said Smith, a Democrat whose district is just five miles from Pulse.

Gun-control supporters — mostly Democrats — don't have much clout in the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature. Still, they're pushing new restrictions they say will make it harder for potentially dangerous people to obtain firearms.

They are quick to say they don't want to take away people's guns. But they do want an end to what Dania Beach Democratic Rep. Evan Jenne calls a "swiss cheese" approach to gun regulations.

Legislation they are proposing this year would:

• Ban assault rifles like the Sig Sauer MCX, which was used to kill 49 people at Pulse, and high-capacity magazines that carry more than seven rounds of ammunition. Assault weapons are "only there to kill others," said Jenne.

• Require background checks for all gun purchases, closing loopholes that allow people to buy firearms at gun shows and from another individual without having their personal history reviewed. Researchers believe as many as 22 percent of gun owners obtain their weapons without a background check.

• Tighten a law mandating that loaded guns be kept in locked storage when they are near children 16 and younger.

• Block people on terrorist watch lists from buying guns, which Democrats tried and failed to do after the Pulse shooting last summer and which leaders say is likely to come back in some form during the legislative session that begins March 7.

Lawmakers also say they want stricter requirements to obtain a concealed carry permit, as well, though they have not proposed legislation to do so. Right now, permit holders have to be 21 years old, pass a gun safety course and pay a $102 fee.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/how-to-end-gun-violence-florida-gun-control-advocates-push-for-tougher-laws/2309467

January 19, 2017

If Obama did what Trump is doing he'd be called a communist

The U.S. is about to cut itself off from one of the most dynamic regions of the globe, according to economist Nouriel Roubini, who has also slammed the industrial strategy of the incoming U.S. administration.

Roubini, the economist who predicted the 2008 stock market crash and is sometimes known as "Dr Doom", said that China is now becoming the champion of free trade.

&quot China is promoting) globalization and free market capitalization at a time when the new incoming leader of the biggest capitalist country in the world talks as if it is scared of competition, of globalization, of trade," he said at a seminar at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.

"Actually some of the tone of bashing firms and telling them where to produce and what to do ... If Obama has done any of those things then he would have been accused of being a communist. But the fact that Trump is doing it is considered to be good industrial policy by some people, not by me," he added.

Roubini discussed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which was a centerpiece of the Obama administration's "pivot" towards Asia. President-elect Donald Trump has already announced that the country would issue a notification of intent to withdraw from TPP.

The TPP was supposed to solidify the U.S.' presence in the region, but Trump called it a potential disaster for the country. Instead, "fair bilateral trade deals" will be negotiated.

Roubini expressed his regret at this decision saying the U.S. "is going to be cutting itself off from one of the most dynamic regions of the world."

"That's going to hurt I would say mostly the United States," he added.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/19/if-obama-did-what-trump-is-doing-hes-be-called-a-communist-nouriel-roubini.html