Donald Trump • Neal Umphred Dot Com

lies, damn lies, fake news, and the misinformation ecosystem

October 12, 2023April 8, 2018 by Neal Umphred

FAKE NEWS AIN’T NEW NEWS. The term has been in fairly regular if not quite common use for years: it initially referred to the mis/disinformation and propaganda circulated by the thousands of well-connected, rightwing radio talk shows for propaganda. It grew to even vaster proportions with the emergence of the millions of ‘conservative’ websites and blogs known as the Rightwing Blogosphere. [Read more] “lies, damn lies, fake news, and the misinformation ecosystem”

when my people are in control vs. when your people are in control

October 12, 2023January 20, 2018 by Neal Umphred

A RECENT QUORA posed the question, “Why is there such animosity between liberals and conservatives in the United States?” A Tom Wetzel offered an intelligent comment that opened with this statement: “It’s ironic in a certain way. Both Democrats and Republicans espouse forms of liberal ideology that are intensely pro-capitalist.” [Read more] “when my people are in control vs. when your people are in control”

telling the truth usually requires facts

October 12, 2023August 25, 2017 by Neal Umphred

TRUTH MATTERS!

FACTS MATTER!

And telling the truth usually requires facts. Anyone telling you otherwise is either very, very stupid—or is trying to get something from you that you really, really don’t want to give up.

Cartoon by Nate Beeler of The Columbus dispatch. [Read more] “telling the truth usually requires facts”

shouldn’t we be calling the sessions-kislyak affair “sessionsgate” by now?

October 12, 2023March 3, 2017 by Neal Umphred

WE ARE NOW deep into an affair that should have been termed either Sessionsgate or Ambassadorgate by our mainstream media. Ever clever with such trite coinages when a Democrat is involved, Attorney General Sessions and President Trump have somehow avoided having their transgression rendered in a manner that suggest the felonies of the Nixon administration of 1972-1973. [Read more] “shouldn’t we be calling the sessions-kislyak affair “sessionsgate” by now?”

definitely “politically correct” (a third take on journalism taking on authority)

October 12, 2023February 5, 2017 by Neal Umphred

TO TELL THE TRUTH in the face of lies is the job of all journalists, with lies being, you know, those alternative fact thingies that are all the rage these days. Or at least that’s what Lewis Wallace states in an editorial call-to-arms that he had posted on his personal blog. [Read more] “definitely “politically correct” (a third take on journalism taking on authority)”

definitely “provably not true” (one take on journalism taking on authority)

October 12, 2023February 2, 2017 by Neal Umphred

DAMN OUR DAMN LIBERAL MEDIA! Here’s yet another example of how the DLM’s bleedingheart librullness screws things up for us poor civilians trying to grok the world in which we live. When addressing a statement that was so manifestly incorrect that it had to be a lie, the national security correspondent for National Public Radio declared the statement “provably not true.” [Read more] “definitely “provably not true” (one take on journalism taking on authority)”

rumor and speculation can look like alternative facts

October 12, 2023January 29, 2017 by Neal Umphred

EVERY TROLL IS RIGHTWINGED, or least seems to be. Every fake news site and every blog passing on alternative facts also seems to be far right of center. Of course, this is based on my experience on the freewheeling worldwide web of fact and fiction, opinion and assessment, rumor and speculation, and everything else a human can do with words, images, and symbols. [Read more] “rumor and speculation can look like alternative facts”

I live in an alternative reality where clinton won

October 12, 2023November 10, 2016 by Neal Umphred

I FEEL LIKE THE OLD MAN in the movie Moonstruck. You know, at the end when everything is happening crazily around him and he puts his head in his hands on the kitchen table and moans, “I’m confused.” This struck home for me when I found an article published earlier today in The Washington Post. [Read more] “I live in an alternative reality where clinton won”

first they came for the lgbt, and I did not speak out because I was straight

October 12, 2023October 23, 2016 by Neal Umphred

FIRST, KNOW THIS: “They’re stoked by bitterness, anger, and the unbearable color of others, and they’re buying into Donald Trump’s trope that the election, indeed society, is rigged against them. At his rallies, they love to wear obscene-laced tee-shirts, and when Hillary Clinton’s name is mentioned, they come alive with chants of ‘Lock her up.’ [Read more] “first they came for the lgbt, and I did not speak out because I was straight”