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Marionumber1 » Fri Aug 16, 2019 2:54 am wrote:@stickdog99: I completely agree with your analysis about acceptable vs. unacceptable conspiracy theories.
Washington Post editor attacks Bernie Sanders’ ‘conspiracy theory’
By MICHAEL CALDERONE 08/13/2019 11:49 AM EDT Updated 08/13/2019 09:22 PM EDT
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Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron bashed Sen. Bernie Sanders for pushing a “conspiracy theory” that the paper’s news coverage is influenced by its owner, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos.
“Sen. Sanders is a member of a large club of politicians — of every ideology — who complain about their coverage,” Baron said in a statement. “Contrary to the conspiracy theory the senator seems to favor, Jeff Bezos allows our newsroom to operate with full independence, as our reporters and editors can attest.”
Sanders spoke Monday on the presidential campaign trail in Wolfeboro, N.H., about how Amazon paid no money in taxes last year.
“I talk about that all of the time,” Sanders continued. “And then I wonder why The Washington Post — which is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon — doesn’t write particularly good articles about me. I don’t know why. But I guess maybe there’s a connection. Maybe we helped raise the minimum wage at Amazon to 15 bucks an hour.”
Sanders has long accused the “corporate media” of putting the interests of the elite above those of the majority of Americans. But Sanders’ swipe on Monday went a step beyond his usual media critique in suggesting a news organization covered him unfairly because of its owner. His comments echoed those of President Donald Trump, who has blamed Bezos for unflattering coverage in the paper, calling the Post “the Amazon Washington Post” in tweets.
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“The hyperoverreaction from many in the media to Senator Sanders' critique reveals a bias,” Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, wrote in an email. “There is a sneering, contemptuous disdain that infuses those comments and a willingness to put words into Bernie's mouth that he just didn't use.”
The Vermont senator’s presidential campaign has been especially critical of the news media, suggesting that journalists are dismissing his candidacy. Shakir told POLITICO last month that “there are a healthy number [of journalists] who just find Bernie annoying, discount his seriousness, and wish his supporters and movement would just go away.”
Sanders isn’t the only Democrat airing grievances about the media. Several 2020 presidential candidates took aim at The New York Times last week over a headline framing Trump's comments after two mass shootings. The Twitter backlash against the Times came a day after former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke responded to a reporter’s question in El Paso, Texas, about how Trump could improve things after the shootings with, “What the fuck?”
“A vast swath of Democratic voters are pretty angry at the media,” Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior Obama aide and current co-host of “Pod Save America,” told POLITICO. “For the first time in my career, making the press a foil is good politics in a Democratic primary.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign isn’t happy with news coverage either. On Monday, senior adviser Symone Sanders suggested on CNN the national “press narrative” is different than the “voter narrative.”
The news media has recently covered several of Biden’s misstatements, which POLITICO’s Natasha Korecki and Marc Caputo report have undercut his message on the campaign trail. Sanders suggested the gaffes do not matter. “This is not something that’s registering with the American people,” she said.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/ ... ry-1460597
"conspiracy theory," a non-sequitur so absurd and unwarranted its use is predicated on nothing more than invocation of the magic words with no engagement of theses or evidence given, or even possible.
Judge greenlights advisor Ed Butowsky’s libel suit against NPR
08 August 2019
Investment advisor Ed Butowsky’s $57 million libel suit against National Public Radio over Seth Rich reports can proceed, a judge rules.
A federal judge has given Texas investment advisor Ed Butowsky the greenlight on a $57 million libel suit against National Public Radio over news reports about conspiracy theories surrounding the death of a Democratic National Committee staffer during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The judge rejected NPR’s bid to dismiss the suit, which Butowsky filed in June 2018, on Wednesday.
Judge Amos Mazzant of US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled that Butowsky made plausible claims that the media organization defamed him in online stories about Butowsky’s role in publicizing assertions that staffer Seth Rich may have been involved in leaking Democratic emails.
NPR’s attorneys argued that the reports in question, by correspondent David Folkenflik, accurately described a defamation lawsuit filed by Rod Wheeler, a private investigator and former homicide detective hired by Butowsky to explore the Rich case, against Fox News and Butowsky. Wheeler had accused Fox of fabricating quotations in a story about Rich’s murder, but his case was dismissed last summer.
Powerful passage from the Rich v. Fox ruling.
https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/sta ... 4816784384
stickdog99 wrote:https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... seth-rich/
Craig Murray:
...perhaps this is the most important point, the FBI was at this time supposed to be in the early stages of an investigation into how the DNC emails were leaked to Wikileaks. The FBI here believed Wikileaks to be indicating the material had been leaked by Seth Rich who had then been murdered. Surely in any legitimate investigation, the investigators would have been absolutely compelled to check out the truth of this possibility, rather than treat it as a media issue?
We are asked to believe that not one of these emails says “well if the publisher of the emails says Seth Rich was the source, we had better check that out, especially as he was murdered with no sign of a suspect”. If the FBI really did not look at that, why on earth not? If the FBI genuinely, as they claim, did not even look at the murder of Seth Rich, that would surely be the most damning fact of all and reveal their “investigation” was entirely agenda driven from the start.
Judge Orders Twitter To Unmask FBI Impersonator Who Set Off Seth Rich Conspiracy
October 7, 20206:57 PM ET
A federal judge in California has ordered that Twitter reveal the identity of an anonymous user who allegedly fabricated an FBI document to spread a conspiracy theory about the killing of Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staffer who died in 2016.
The ruling could lead to the identification of the person behind the Twitter name @whyspertech. Through that account, the user allegedly provided forged FBI materials to Fox News. The documents falsely linked Rich's killing to the WikiLeaks hack of Democratic Party emails in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
While Twitter fought to keep the user's identity secret, U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu in Oakland, Calif., ordered on Tuesday that the tech company must turn over the information to attorneys representing Rich's family in a defamation suit by Oct. 20.
It is the latest twist in a years-long saga over a conspiracy theory that rocked Washington, caused a grieving family a great deal of pain and set off multiple legal battles.
In a now-retracted story, Fox News falsely claimed that Rich's computer was connected to the leak of Democratic Party emails provided to WikiLeaks, and that Rich's slaying was related to the purported leak. The theory was even debunked in special counsel Robert Mueller's report.
The Washington Times later reported in 2018 that Rich's brother, Aaron Rich, helped steal the emails in exchange for money from WikiLeaks and that he knew his brother would be killed and did nothing to stop it. None of those allegations are true. That story has also been retracted.
Behind Fox News' Baseless Seth Rich Story: The Untold Tale
MEDIA
Behind Fox News' Baseless Seth Rich Story: The Untold Tale
But the Rich family insists that the baseless story is still causing real harm. Aaron Rich filed a defamation lawsuit against money manager and former Fox News guest Ed Butowsky; Matt Couch, a far-right activist; America First Media, Couch's media company; and The Washington Times, which later reached a settlement.
As the defamation case moves toward trial, one major question has been what unnamed "federal investigator" supposedly reviewed an "FBI forensic report" and shared information with Butowsky and others.
Attorneys for Aaron Rich say they believe it was the now-deactivated Twitter account @whyspertech, and the judge's ordering Twitter to provide information about that account could help them get closer to an answer.
"Learning the identity of @whysprtech is necessary in order to confirm that @whysprtech was not in fact a FBI 'insider' or otherwise someone who had access to non-public FBI material," Benedict Hu wrote in a filing.
Over the course of gathering evidence for the defamation case, nobody has been willing to confirm the identity of @whysprtech, Hur noted.
Attorney Julie Schwartz, who is representing Twitter, did not return requests for comment. It is unclear if Twitter intends to appeal.
The subpoena does not seek private messages sent by the account, but merely "limited account registration information" and the user's IP address. If Twitter complies with the judge's order, the account information will be available to Aaron Rich's attorneys, though it could eventually become public in later court filings.
Twitter: Unmasking violates free speech
Twitter fought to have the subpoena killed. In court filings, attorneys for the social media giant claimed such a disclosure would violate the First Amendment rights of a user to be anonymous.
"Twitter's primary goal is to ensure that the subpoena not be used to chill anonymous speech that does not rise to the level of defamation," Schwartz wrote in a motion to have the subpoena thrown out.
Yet lawyers for Aaron Rich said the person who hid behind the @whyspertech Twitter handle to fuel a harmful conspiracy theory should be exposed.
Are Conspiracy Theories Good For Facebook?
PLANET MONEY
Are Conspiracy Theories Good For Facebook?
"Plaintiff seeks to demonstrate the reach of the forged FBI report on the false information spread by Defendants, but cannot do so without serving discovery on the anonymous user who disseminated that report," Hur wrote.
The judge sided with Aaron Rich, noting that the law "weighs towards disclosing the anonymous user's account information."
"The information sought is proportional to the needs of the case because the subpoena is limited in scope and Twitter does not argue that responding would pose an undue burden," Ryu wrote.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is imprisoned in Britain awaiting the outcome of a U.S. push to have him extradited to face espionage charges, was also subpoenaed in the defamation case.
The 2016 killing of Seth Rich, in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C., remains unsolved. Law enforcement have maintained that Rich was the victim of an armed robbery.
Disclosure: NPR is involved in one of the legal battles tied to the Seth Rich controversy. Ed Butowsky has filed a defamation suit against NPR and NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik over the network's coverage of the Fox News story on Rich that has since been retracted.
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/07/92128547 ... conspiracy
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