25 Fake News Stories From The Mainstream Media

One of this week's main news stories is the proliferation of fake news websites and their potential effect on US elections.

One purveyor of fake news drew heavy fire for boasting, "I think Trump is in the White House because of me."

Meanwhile Google and Facebook announced they would be banning fake news websites from their advertising networks, citing the immense popularity of fake news with partisans on social media the election cycle.

So it's important now for the independent, critically-minded reader and sharer of news to note and reflect on the amount of fake news stories propagated by mainstream media sources, sometimes unknowingly through unacceptable carelessness and lack of proper journalistic rigor, other times knowingly and deliberately to influence elections or support a policy agenda.

Remember that after this election, even the New York Times, America's "newspaper of record," has had to apologize and "rededicate" itself to honesty, fairness, and scrutiny.

This kind of fake news is arguably more egregious than the kind we've been hearing about this week because it abuses the trust people have in an ostensibly reputable media source. The following list of 25 fake news stories from the mainstream media shows just how difficult it is to tackle the problem of fake news.

Banning click-bait upstarts will only scratch the surface of a much deeper problem, the systemic duplicity of a corporate mass media that serves entrenched interests and is every bit as interested in monetizing page views as the lone wolf peddler of bogus news.

Read the rest at The Independent Voter Network.

Obama keeps pushing the bipartisan religion of interventionism

Michael Scheuer is deadly accurate - foreign interventionism is a bipartisan religion (or disease, whichever you prefer). Too often, I believe, Americans think about Washington’s interventionism only as the actual physical intervention of U.S. military forces abroad in places where no U.S. interest is at risk. That activity certainly is intervention, but President Obama’s despicable decision last week to have his administration leak intelligence claiming that Israel has concluded an agreement with the government of Azerbaijan to allow its use of Azeri airfields for an air strike on Iran is just as much an unwarranted intervention by the United States government. Readers of this blog will know that I carry no brief for Israel, that I believe it is a state that is irrelevant to U.S. national interests, and one whose U.S.-citizen supporters are disloyal to America and involved in activities that compromise U.S. security and corrupt the U.S. political system. That said, Israel — l...

How Thorough a Brainwashing

Saw this on Facebook: Left this comment: It's more thorough of a wash job than that. They don't just believe they are not brainwashed, the question has never occurred to them and as long as they keep reading TIME and watching MTV, it's *impossible* for the question to occur to them. Oh brave new world, that has such people in it. EDIT: And one more thing-- don't ever stop considering what questions it is currently impossible to occur to you . This is what I've been thinking about a lot lately and I'm worried just how large and numerous my own blindspots are. The only solution is to be as intellectually curious as possible. To learn voraciously. To read things that challenge us. To read things that are hard for us to understand and then try to understand them. To expose ourselves to ideas far removed from our present culture and place on the timeline. Read old books. Read foreign books. Turn off the TV. You have already absorbed its biases and blindspots. ...

How To Gain More Twitter Followers

Earlier today, I wrote : "My goal is to write a book before the end of March. My goal is to spend no more than a week from start to publication, spending as much time as I need in order to get it done during that week. My goal is to give it away to you for free here on HumbleLibertarian.com. What's a goal you have? Something you may have been putting off for years? Something you could accomplish in one month if you were determined? If it's near-term enough of a goal, and specific enough of a goal, and you share it in the comments below, feel free to tell me how I can help you and I'll do whatever I can. If it's a libertarian / news / politics-related goal, my manner of help would be easy to determine. I could promote it, introduce you to someone via email, (etc.). If it's something apolitical like quit smoking cigarettes, start exercising, learn guitar, start a business, gain more Twitter followers, learn another language, eat a paleo diet, or...

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