Poll Dancing

Two weeks ago, Fox News and every other conservative news outlet was doing a victory dance regarding a Rasmussen poll which showed approval for Trump skyrocketing to 35% among African Americans. There was zero hesitation in pronouncing that this foretold of doom for Democrats in 2020, and that liberals had to seriously re-think their strategies. CNN commentators immediately decried the poll as inaccurate. Anna Navarro Cardenas, a Republican commentator on CNN, notably said, "Zero chance this is accurate." Her comment was immediately decried by Fox, One America News, and other outlets as "typical liberal media bias." Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity could barely contain their excitement.

Rasmussen is often cited by right-wing news because it skews results in favor of Republican candidates. Thus, when other polls typically show an approval rating among African Americans for Donald Trump to be around 10%, Rasmussen shows it typically around 25%. So a report that shows approval among black Americans at 35% should have indicated a spike in approval rating in general. But was this accurate, or merely an outlier? Another poll by Emerson University seemed to show similar results, and Fox took this as gospel. Now, a "fair and balanced" news organization such as the one Fox News claims to be, would have reported these as a potential outliers, and advised that further results need to be obtained before any conclusions could be drawn. They might also have pointed out that, even if real, this could be only a temporary spike in approval among African Americans, spurred in large part by Trump's comments about the horrible state of the inner city. Naturally, they did not say either of these things, instead reporting that Trump was definitely gaining support among the black American voting population.

Well, surprise, surprise, reality has brought this biased reporting back down to a crash-landing on planet Earth. A YouGov poll released yesterday shows African Americans who strongly approve of Donald Trump to be merely 5%, and those that somewhat approve of Trump to be 8%, giving Trump a whopping 13%. Slightly higher than the usual 10%, but not by much. Rasmussen's poll crashed back down to its usual mid-25% range. And to top it off, a new poll, released by none other than Fox News itself, confirms this with 24%. Even Fox couldn't get the results higher than Rasmussen's 25% range.

To add insult to injury, the same poll shows increased support for Trump's impeachment, with 50% of respondents saying that Trump should be impeached and removed from office, and only 41% saying he should not be impeached at all.

So, will Fox News, One America, The Epoch Times, Newsday, Limbaugh or Hannity apologize for getting things so obviously wrong?

I'm betting not.


Eric

*

The Formula

Ever notice how very little news on conservative news outlets is actually news? I mean, today's headlines on Foxnews.com features the following line items on its politics tab:

Trump attending Army Navy game in Pasadena - tertiary.
Trump attacks Schumer after Schumer says that the U.S. sold out on China trade deal - reporting on someone else's opinions.
Illegal immigrants to get drivers' licenses after court case loss - interesting choice of emphasis.
Trump supporter grabs spotlight at Sanders rally by protesting - again, odd choice of emphasis.
Eric Trump's daughter makes debut on Fox News - big deal.
Eric Trump says impeachment is a hail mary - opinion.
Rep. McCarthy says imeachment puts 55 Democrats in vulnerable spot - opinion.
Candace Owens and Corey Lewandowski lend their perspective - opinion.
Kellyanne Conway on impeachment - opinion.
Anti-impeachment Rep. Jeff Drew met with Trump to discuss party switch. - Emphasis.
Eric Shawn on whether or not impeachment will hurt or help Trump - opinion.

Basically, half of all the "news" stories reported on Fox News are all opinion pieces. The other half are unimportant items or strange choices to emphasize. Carolina Trump, being the president's newest granddaughter, making a TV debut as a baby while her daddy makes commentary is an interesting tidbit, but hardly important. Reporting Trump's attacks is reporting the news, but how is over-emphasizing Trump's tweets a responsible thing anymore? And the Trump supporter at the Sanders rally? Honestly, who cares?

But this is the formula for Fox News: Don't actually report the news. Instead, report the opinion. If it's not a news piece featuring someone else's opinion, it's a news piece that reports the story, and then kicks it over to a panel of talking heads, all of whom give their opinion. Not a one of these is anything other than a Trump sycophant, and so the news gets broken down in the most biased manner possible.

Shit, it's amazing how little news in on Fox News!

But the formula is clear: Report as little news as possible. When news must be reported, emphasize the stories that favor your side. When the stories don't favor your side (or even if they do) kick the story over to a panel which will discuss it in the most conservative light possible.

And this formula WORKS when it comes to deceiving people! Fox News knows perfectly well that people are too busy to really get into the weeds on technical details. People are busy with jobs, with kids, with a hundred other things, and they don't have time to really research. So, to feel informed, they watch what the pundits are saying. If they see all three pundits saying that the impeachment of Donald Trump is a big hoax, they assume that it must be a hoax! After all, nobody is dissenting, right?

This is part of why we need a return to the Fairness Doctrine like we need oxygen! The news being presented in one-sided format has gone on long enough!

Oh, there's bias on the other side, too. Today's viewing of CNN.com has a lineup of much more substantive headlines. Like reporting how thousands of troops will be recalled from Afghanistan. Or how the Supreme Court will be taking up the case regarding Trump's tax returns.Here, at least, you get a lot more of the information you NEED to know. But it also emphasizes comments by Lindsey Graham saying that he's not even trying to be fair when it comes to Trump's impeachment. That's a fair bit of reporting, but it's no mystery why it got top billing on the website. It also features a story about Melania Trump ignoring how her husband has been bullying Greta Thornburg, after Melania made anti-bullying her First-Lady pet-project. Okay, the hypocrisy is stark, but so also is the emphasis.

Meanwhile, MSNBC doesn't even bother having a staff putting news stories in print form on its website. It emphasized the videos, and many of them criticize Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham for so bluntly admitting that they will not even bother trying to be objective regardint Trump's impeachment trial. Again, a fair bit of reporting, but no mystery as to why it was pushed to the front page.

The Left may be slanted, but the Right has gotten outright blatant in its lies, pushing conspiracy theories and outright bullshit. For example, Judge Jeanine cannot even say the word "impeachment" without sounding as though she's putting the word in quotes, as I just did. And when one compares the number of substantive political news stories on CNN with those on Fox News, one can't help but notice how CNN has so much more information that Fox has.

So what does Fox have that's so popular? It has confirmation bias.

I'll be documenting plenty more examples of this as I continue to find them...

But it's disquieting how I don't need to look very hard.


Eric

*

"I Want Nothing!" Oh, But You Did!

By now, you've probably heard Trump's defense that the conservative media has grasped onto. Gordon Sondland dropped a bombshell on the White House last Wednesday, testifying that, in no uncertain terms, Trump did offer a quid pro quo to Ukraine. And furthermore, said Sondland, everybody knew it.

Now, Sondland has been a major Trump supporter, both in terms of money and vocal support. He is the ambassador to the European Union, which has an official partnership with Ukraine (even though Ukraine is not an E.U. member). He was right in the middle of the scandal, and therefore had first-hand knowledge of everything that was going on.

In other words, once and for all, this is not a "hoax," nor is this a "witch hunt." Let's put that one to bed once and for all.

The first thing conservatives did was ask for written proof. Sondland had lots of documents in the form of his own personal emails, but did not have the State Department documents to back him up. Those, interestingly, are sealed. So when Sondland was questioned by Steve Castor as to whether or not he had any proof, Sondland could only provide his own recollections, and admitted presumptions about what Trump and Rudy Giuliani wanted.

Republicans have seized upon this as proof that there's no "there" there. But let's look at that more closely: If what Sondland was saying was wrong, and his testimony was incorrect, then logically that would mean that he was doing his job incorrectly based on an incorrect presumption. For months, nobody said anything about it, and no Republicans voiced any objections until the day Sondland testified. That's incompetence on a grand scale, not only by Trump, but by ALL his State Department underlings! It would be cause to fire not only Trump, but everyone in the State Department!

OR, Trump is guilty. That's it. Those are your only two logical choices.

Now, the so-called "liberal media" has not reported this. But let's continue, because there's more.

Following Trump's eccentric lead, they are arguing that Trump outright told Gordon Sondland that he "wanted nothing from Ukraine," in a phone call on September 9th.

But wait, September 9th? Isn't that the SAME DAY that the whistleblower complaint was delivered to the House Intelligence Committee? Indeed it was! You can confirm that on the timeline provided by factcheck.org.

So that means Trump told Sondland he wanted nothing from Ukraine after the fact! Trump was walking it back at that point because he knew he'd been caught!

And his statement that he "wanted nothing" does not exonerate him. Rather, it proves he's guilty!

Has the "liberal media" reported this? Well, once in the New York Times, but that seems to be about it. For the sake of journalistic integrity, all news sources, left and right, should be reporting the living hell out of this. But they're not.

Fox News handled this the way Fox News typically handles things: by reporting what the president said, and then leaving it at that. Then they kicked it over to the sycophant commetators who parrot Trump's position without question. Only Justice Napolitano pointed out the truth, but by now Fox News viewers have written him off.

Under-reporting the news is the same as reporting biased news. Because Fox knows you, the viewer, will come to the conclusion they set up for you when they only tell half the story - the half they prefer to tell.

Eric

*

Hannity Blows It Again

Sometimes, they make it too easy.

Last Wednesday, ahead of the impeachment inquiry hearings, Sean Hannity tried to take Democrats down a peg or two by saying that they have done nothing for America except go after Donald Trump.

This is so empirically false, it's amusing. They passed the renewal of the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. The Senate passed it as well, and the president signed it, but only after Jon Stewart brow-beat Republicans into doing so. Then there's the 'For the People Act of 2019, H.R. 1, Equality Act, H.R. 5, H.R.7: Paycheck Fairness Act, H.R. 8: Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, H.R. 9: Climate Action Now Act, (Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on February 15, 2019) (H.J.Res. 46, Vetoed March 15, 2019), Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal, H.Res. 109, H.R. 150: Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency Act of 2019 (GREAT Act), H.Res.411: No More Presidential Wars Act, H.R. 662: REACH Act, H.R. 899: To terminate the Department of Education (interesting, perhaps better no Department than one run by Betsy DeVos?), H.R. 1585: Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019, SAFE Banking Act of 2019, H.R. 1595, H.R. 1644: Save the Internet Act of 2019, Taxpayer First Act of 2019, H.R. 1957, H.R. 2107: Affordable College Textbook Act, Well-Informed, Scientific, & Efficient Government Act (WISE Government Act)...

And all that simply cut and pasted from Wikipedia. It was that simple to find.

I mean, Jesus, Hannity! Can you even do an Internet search on Google?


Eric

*

Dumb Strzok? Or Dumb Article?

It took me 0 seconds to find political bias on Fox News today. It is interesting how this has become so blatant, and so frequent, that anyone can find this sort of thing immediately, and without trying.

The article I found, headlined on foxnews.com, dealt with former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was fired for having classified information on his personal phone, and for having an affair with a staff member. What makes the article so interestingly biased, is the fast that the article emphasizes one particular detail. Here's the opening paragraph:

"The Department of Justice released documents Monday outlining a slew of "security violations" and flagrantly "unprofessional conduct" by anti-Trump ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok -- including his alleged practice of keeping sensitive FBI documents on his unsecured personal electronic devices, even as his wife gained access to his cell phone and discovered evidence that he was having an affair with former FBI attorney Lisa Page."

Now, many people in government are "anti-Trump." Quite a few, in fact, have recently been in Trump's administration, and have left saying that Trump is an idiot. People like Reince Priebus, Anthony Scaramucci, John Kelly, John Bolton, Hope Hicks, and the list goes on. So it's not unusual for any given FBI person, or former FBI in this case, to have a negative opinion about Donald Trump. But this article LEADS with that fact. And in doing so, it strongly implies that those who oppose Trump are just as dirty as this particular ex-agent whose sloppy security breeches and extramarital affair got him into trouble.

Now, objectively, it should be obvious that Strzok's personal feelings about Trump are entirely separate from the misdeeds for which he was fired. It should also be obvious that there are plenty of Trump supporters who are just as dirty, and are currently sitting in jail or are awaiting jail. Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen, George Papadopoulos, and recently Roger Stone, among others.

Fox News is bluntly trying to say, "See? There are some crooked anti-Trumpers, too!"

Maybe so, but doesn't it look a little desperate to make your headline story of the day be one about a sloppy FBI agent who couldn't keep his fly zipped?

The bias of Fox News is not always blatant. Sometimes it is subtle. This time it wasn't so subtle, but it was subliminal. We are not meant to notice that Strzok's irrelevant anti-Trump stance is mentioned right away. We are not meant to be conscious of how this flavors perspective against those with an anti-Trump stance. And we are not meant to notice how, further down in the article, mention is made about leaks from the FBI in the Trump administration, and how this implicates that Strzok may be one of the leakers. For all we know, he might be, but it is not keeping with journalistic integrity to imply such a thing without evidence.


Eric

*

The New Sacred Cow Wursthaus Mission

I've been doing this blog a long time. I've written a lot of screeds and vented a lot of my frustrations, both political and non-political. But now I need to decide what I'm going to do with this blog going forward. It seems married life has left me with less time to write, but I do wish to keep going.

Currently, I'm contemplating making a run for the 17th district of the Wisconsin State Assembly. I probably won't win, but I'm feeling the absolute need to seize the microphone in a way which goes beyond what this blog has been able to give me. I need to actually let my voice be heard for once.

As such, most of what I write in this blog going forward will be detailing the errors, lies and deceit of conservative media. The more I look at what's happening, the more I realize that support for Trump and the madness that so-called "conservatism" has descended into, can all be tied to the fact that a large percentage of our nation's citizens are being lied to. And not just lied to, but blatently and bluntly lied to. There is no distinction anymore between tabloid journalism and journalism. There is no journalistic integrity. It's all Oligarch Network News, and the Information Age has turned into the Misinformation Age.

So when I'm out there pointing this out, the victims of this network of lies will undoubtedly ask for proof. I will give them this blog, together with all of my past profanity, my past mistakes, and my bared soul. It will have one example after another, for days on end, and for the months going forward, of lies, lies and more lies, together with the proof of same. Will it be enough to convince a few sheep to leave the fold? Will it force the wolf to take off his woolen disguise? I don't know. But I'm willing to try.

Brace yourself, Fox News. Look out, Breitbart. I'm aiming at you.


Eric

*

500 Scientists Deny Global Warming? Not!

With all the hoopla surrounding Greta Thunberg and her passionate address to the U.N., did you happen to see, in your social media feed perhaps, a link to an odd news story which said something like, "500 Scientists Write U.N.: 'There Is No Climate Emergency.'"? Op-Ed-Disguised-As-News organizations such as Breitbart made sure this headline got lots of undeserved exposure.

Except 500 scientists didn't write to the U.N.

Oh, there was a letter to the U.N., all right. You can read it here. https://clintel.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ecd-letter-to-un.pdf But the headline was dead wrong. It wasn't 500 scientists. Get past the headline, and it becomes "500 scientists and professionals."

Well, shit, it's bait-and-switch right from the start.

But it doesn't stop there. The letter actually has only 14 actual signatories. These signers are the ringleaders of an organization called the European Climate Declaration, which in turn is headed by the Amsterdam-based Climate Intelligence Foundation, or CLINTEL. They claim to represent 500 people based on a networked list, but as we shall see, that list is dubious. Their leader is a man named Guus Berkhout, who is a scientist from the Netherlands. What is he a scientist of? Why, oil and gas exploration, of course. That takes the wind out of the sails right there.

But wait, there's more! I mean - less. The list of scientists is unimpressive. You can find it here:
https://clintel.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ED-brochureversieNWA4.pdf


There are 506 people on the list, not counting the leaders. But of those, most are engineers, field chemists, computer techs and some self-appointed "experts" as well. What a letdown.

Oh, there are a few impressive names. A few are retired people from NASA, for instance. But for the most part, these are the blue-collar non-researchers who make up the grunts of a former science team, not the actual experts themselves.

The leader of the U.S. contingent is a guy named Richard Lindzen, who is usually at the top of every list of climate-change-denying scientists. For whatever reason, climate change denial has a real foothold among meteorologists, and Lindzen is one of them. He's rallied people to his cause in the U.S., but not many. The number of signatories on CLINTEL's list who are from the U.S. is a measly 45 people. Given such resources for advertisement as Fox News, it's amazing that he got only 44 other people. Maybe next time he shouled put out a call for signatories on the Mark Levin radio show.

The only name on the list which stands out is Freeman Dyson. This highly acclaimed scientist at Princeton is well known among science fiction fans for coming up with the "Dyson Sphere," which is a structure surrounding a star to harvest every single photon of energy. But why would he sign this document? The answer is, he didn't. In fact, most of the "signatories" were only represented by the 14 who actually signed the U.N. letter.

Dyson was involved with CLINTEL in the past, but hasn't had much involvement with them since 2009. He openly acknowledges the reality of anthropogenic climate change, he only questions the scale of certain projections. So his name being included on this list is dubious at best. It indicates that this list is a growing compilation of people who were ever associated with this organization, even remotely, at least once, and that, my friends, is called fudging the numbers.

Even with over-inflating and over-estimating the numbers like this, the list is only a little over 500. That may seem like a lot, and indeed, some media outlets have been reporting that such a high number indicates that denial of global warming is not limited to a few fringe scientists. But remember, this list was slapped together from 23 countries in total. If you can draw from that many countries, it isn't difficult to get 500 people on just about any topic, from denying the holocaust to insisting that Americans never landed on the moon in 1969. Get the minority tin-foil hats from that many countries, and you'll always get several hundred. I'm actually surprised that this group only got 500 people. They should realistically have gotten more with such a broad base to draw upon.

So there you have it. Once again some backwater mavericks who happen to have PhD's they can't do anything with due to their ruined reputations have made a career for themselves by deliberately muddying the water. These are the same sort of people (and sometimes even the VERY same people!) who repeatedly told us such whoppers as, "Cigarettes don't necessarily cause cancer!" And, "CFC's aren't really eroding the ozone layer!" Or, remember this one? "Lead in gasoline is not a significant neurotoxin." That one still amazes me! "DDT is harmless to children."

These sort of backwater shits have been wrong before. They'll be wrong again. And they're wrong now.

Pull me once, shame on you. Pull me several times....

...and I'm a Rush Limbaugh fan!


Eric

*