If you can’t beat ’em, shut ’em up! That has increasingly become the rallying cry on college campuses and newsrooms throughout the country when confronted with the reality of conservative blogs, much of talk radio, and Fox News. On Friday, that meme was sounded by the founder of Data for Progress, a radical far-left think tank that (surprise, surprise!) endorses socialism and the Green New Deal — a scheme designed to destroy the U.S. economy for an entire generation of Americans — and wants the next Democratic administration to dismantle and silence Fox News.
“[T]he next democratic presidential administration must dismantle fox news,” tweeted Sean McElwee, in response to another insane claim that Fox viewership somehow makes judges more punitive. Do these crazies believe Fox sends out a subliminal message to judges? Something like “toss the bum in Jail”?
https://twitter.com/SeanMcElwee/status/1098225825504206849
But wait, the study didn’t even check to see if the judges themselves were watching FNC. Maybe Mr. McElewee believes that those who are affected by the non-existent Fox messages camp outside the homes of judges in the middle of the night and chant “lock ’em up.” If this sounds crazy, it is…but it’s still less absurd than the premise that FNC affects a judges sentencing.
“Even New York Magazine admitted that this was a little extreme, saying, ‘as awful as Fox News might be, would be incompatible with small-d democratic government,’” noted NewsBusters’s Corinne Weaver, who added:
Data for Progress was founded in response to President Donald Trump’s election win in 2016. In its about section, it starts “Hillary Clinton decisively won the popular vote in 2016. She did not win the presidency.” One of its latest blog posts insinuates that U.S. voters are not aware of any female Republicans in office, and criticizes the GOP for its lack of female representation.
In another tweet referencing his desire to remove Fox News, McElwee slammed the network, “The existence of an explicitly white nationalist media channel that spreads virulent misinformation is a far greater threat to democracy than getting rid of it.”
The study he posted was presented on January 26 by Columbia University researchers Elliott Ash and Michael Poyker. It determined, based on the data selected from nine states, that “Higher Fox News viewership increases incarceration length, and the effect is stronger for black defendants and for drug-related crimes.”
Getting rid of Fox would be a direct violation of the Constitution and “incompatible with small-d democratic government,” it seems to be entirely compatible with and acceptable to the current cabal of socialist tyrant-wannabes that make up the current Democratic Party.
Let’s list those who like to talk about limiting free speech:
1. Liberals
2.
TheSPLC has been labeling anything and everything conservative as hate they pressure those with purse strings to cut off any way of monetizing through the internet. Paypal ect. Its a full blown effort to only get an already insane message to the public.
Hitler took over the press in 1933. the take over was in a pending communist advance-totally BS. the propaganda ministry in 1933 rewrote new laws for paper publication, there were over 4700 papers in Germany, by 1944 there were less than 1,000. why don’t the demorats just say National Socialist Party
@MOS#8541:
Or Communist.
@MOS#8541: Hitler and Goebbels also controlled the movie industry. How about that?
Socialists just like in the opening lines to the classic Sci Fi TV series THE OUTER LIMITS which was WE’LL CONTROL ALL THAT YOU SEE AND HEAR
Curt, you write some crazy crap.
@Gary Miller: Psst, Curt posted it he did not compose the article that would be by Joe Newby And Jeff Dunetz
This is almost correct, but the current Democratic Party is composed of a much wider coalition than just socialist tyrant-wannabes. Yes, some of the current 2020 contenders for the presidency carry the socialist banner proudly, but they do not present a threat to American ideals, and they have no chance of willing enough support from the voters to take the high office. Neither would they ever have enough legislative support to enact what they would like, as cumbersome and conservative as our congress collectively is.
The temptation to control the media, the press and free speech will always be rejected by Americans fortunate enough to have already enjoyed these freedoms. There is no turning back.
@George Wells:
The left controls about 95% of it now. Free speech IS restricted and the left does not object, if not outright cheering it on.
You can see Fox is less controlled by the goose step marxist one world order cult pushing the Communist model of central government. Only 1 or 2 talking heads on the 24/7 propaganda mill have enough talent to survive outside the AP bubble. They are not really good just trying to put a new angle on the days molehill. The guests they give 5 minutes are often less talented. To some of weaker mind or marxist leanings they can be persuasive. They can dredge up a story from a year earlier say it is breaking news, bombshell, all it is is another previously debunked previously reported bit of claptrap, but within days the government will be bringing charges or announcing indictments against some person involved. Then they will tell their watchers how they got the scoop, all they did was get CIA mocking bird information to make it appear to the public this person deserves what treatment or punishment the government has in store for him.
Wikileaks has an extensive list of those working with the Clinton campaign, giving the campaign editorial rights and asking for any thing else they could put in the narrative.
@Deplorable Me:
Freedom of the press guarantees the right of the media to say whatever they wish, subject to the limitations of the laws regarding slander and libel. There is no proscription against partisan bias, no censorship of opinion. That is the playing field that our Founding Fathers created for us, and we use it freely. If 95% of the media is liberal, that is a consequence of the financial unattractiveness of the conservative message.
Republicans include a great many wealthy individuals who have the financial capacity to fund and support conservative media, and if they are dissatisfied with the content offered by the liberal media, they are not being prevented from opening their own information outlets through which they may air their own views without restriction.
@George Wells:
That would make a good argument if Fox News was not the most successful and respected of all the news services. If the “conservative message” was so unsustainable, it would not take people like Soros funding organizations to try and destroy it.
I believe you affirmed that you think it is bad when the media lies to the American people. Do you think the right to free speech gives the media a carte blanc right to lie to promote a political message which a REAL media should not be promoting anyway?
@ Despicable Me:
I believe that THAT right is implicit in the provisions we have protecting both free speech and a free press. Censorship in any disguise is a prescription for dictatorship. It is incumbent on all free citizens to discern for themselves where the truth lays, and if they fail, they do so at their own peril. Such is the price of freedom.
Regardless of which Constitutional Amendment you are addressing, “free but not” is unacceptable.
@George Wells: No, I’m not talking about censorship. I’m talking about PEOPLE holding propaganda organs responsible for their actions. Personally, when I catch someone lying, I doubt everything they say from then on. Sure, the media makes mistakes, but they have been caught LYING numerous times, not to mention simply suppressing certain stories they can’t bring themselves to cover. So, as liberal sycophants are sold “bombshell” after “bombshell” that fail to detonate, when will they come to the realization that they are being played for fools? When they do, CNN and MSNBC, for a couple of examples, will close their doors.
@Deplorable Me:
And in what form does the “holding responsible” you are talking about take? Personally, I take EVERYTHING I hear coming from the media (not just MSNBC or CNN or FOX, but all of it) with a mighty chunk of salt. Neither do I give a shred of credence to the trash-heap of repeated partisan dogma that both sides put out, so convenient it is to take word-for-word from a feed rather than paraphrase, much less investigate for yourself and report fairly. They all rush to scoop, but only retract when they get their noses rubbed in their own mistakes.
Hold who responsible for what? How? When Brian Williams got caught in a lie, he got fired. A big enough lie, one that jeopardizes the credibility of the corporate entity, that gets a reaction proportionate to the damage it either did or could do to the company, and that reaction either damages or ruins the “responsible” person. What else do you expect? If FOX news decides that a Hannity ethical error will cause them to lose too much advertising revenue, they’ll do SOMETHING to gain back the trust, and more importantly, the business of their advertisers.
Oh? Not THOSE people? You mean the PUBLIC? LOLOLOL! What do they know but what you tell them? And if you are depending on the very media that has misled them to disillusion them, you are caught in a fatal paradox. That, my friend, is the price of freedom. Liberty is a dangerous pursuit fraught with quicksand. Yet despite its inherent flaws, it is far better than any alternative.
@George Wells:
That will now be tested with a 250 million dollar suit, many believed the intentional and vicious defamation.
@kitt:
Good luck with that.
There’s a slippery slope I wouldn’t want to get close to.
@George Wells: People simply stop relying on them for information. However, when you look at the loss of viewership MSNBC and CNN have already suffered, they don’t seem to care about the loss of revenue… or it is being replaced from some other source.
I, too check things out. I also store the links to information in my own data base, an Excel form with topics hyperlinked to searchable Word documents with links I have run across stored on them.
He had been paid millions a year to lie and is working again. Same with Dan Rather. They don’t even feel shame; they just take a hiatus for a little while and are back doing their thing. Liberals that will tell liberals what they want to hear can always get work.
I only describe what COULD happen… what SHOULD happen, not what will happen. No, trust me, I encounter enough people who are so imbued with the liberal ideological line, they can’t hear anything else.
I see you type the names you are addressing at the top of each post. Did you know that if you click on “reply” that is done automatically?
Thanks for the tip. I didn’t know that. Tell me if it’s now right.
I suspect that the loss of broadcast media viewership represents as much the evolution toward online content as anything else. I heard the other day that for the first time, advertising revenues from online sources outpaced broadcast media’s same $$$. The way of the future isn’t wed to any specific source, much less the truth.
@George Wells: No, or some reason it didn’t. For your name here, I just clicked on “reply”.
@Depolorable Me:
Odd. I do not HAVE a “reply” tab/icon/button.
@George Wells: It appears in every comment on lower right hand side, if you hover your cursor arrow over it it turns red.
There are libel laws for a very good reason, the child WaPo intentionally lied about was a private citizen, the media is not covered as they are in some cases with public figures and reporting on those people.
A Los Angeles jury ruled that The National Enquirer libeled the actress Carol Burnett in a 1976 gossip column. It ordered the Florida-based publication to pay her $1.6 million in damages. Miss Burnett contended in her lawsuit that The Enquirer had fabricated an item depicting her as intoxicated at an encounter at a Washington restaurant with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.
The National Inquirer was not taken very seriously at that time. How much more damaging was what WaPo fabricated. People were saying colleges should not accept the kids. Death threats, having to close down the school because of protests ect ect ect.
@kitt:
Found it! Weeee!
When you publicly slander someone, like Retire05 did in Northam#77, there is always the possibility of being sued. So that the courts don’t get bogged down with boring and trivial litigation, the bar for justification of reward is set intentionally high. One way is by making proof of slander difficult to prove – the claimant must prove a negative: that the offending statement actually is a lie. The claimant must also convincingly demonstrated that that he or she has been measurably harmed. Finally, unless the slanderer is visibly rolling in cash, it may be difficult or impossible to recover whatever compensation the court decides is just. Consequently, most lies go unpunished.
Yes, some libel suits are successful. You slander at your own peril.