Good thing Mathews isn't the special prosecutor, he seemed to miss a lot.

Flynn wasn't known to be involved before the election with the Russian election interference, but absolutely was involved in a second crime of subversion before Trump took office.
That's two separate investigations, Flynn was central to the Flynn investigation, and was found to be a liar and probably is guilty of subversion, a crime of treason.

Edit: Flynn was also guilty of lying by omission to congress, and not admitting he was a foreign agent (not hyperbole, he worked for Turkey and Russia if memory serves).

@eric3579
agreed,and i suspect most people struggle with this,but i think he made a really important point that we all need to address,and that is our own bias.

too many people for far too long have sought information that aligns with their own narrative,their own,personal and subjective understandings.we see those who identify as conservative reject anything that does not adhere to their own,narrow worldview,and we see those who identify as progressive do the exact same thing.

and yet if challenged,BOTH will stubbornly declare that their information is solid and without reproach.this is statistically impossible.

another great point he makes is how some people have been conditioned to accept opinion and conflict as somehow being "news".

he also makes a point on how some news outlets have done shoddy and poor work,but we should not throw the baby out with the bath water.while this may be true,i feel he was far too lenient on those who profess to be journalists.he gives them a pass for doing mediocre work,because that is what many journalists do in this new climate of:partisan hackery,access and propaganda.

so when we talk about "mainstream media",we are talking about only a few,monolithic corporations who DO have an agenda,and that agenda is PROFIT.

so we can look back to the run up to the iraq war,and see how phil donahue was fired from MSNBC for being critical of the war.the highest rated show on that network at that time.so if PROFIT is the model,then donahue being fired makes no sense..UNLESS you consider that the owners of MSNBC were general electric,who at that time were heavily invested in military contracts on the dawn of a new war.

so the profit was not from advertising from donahue's show,but rather the billions in defense contracts general electric was poised to receive from the impending iraq war,and donahue's criticisms of that war had the possibility to affect the profits of general electric.

and that is the one point that is missing from mr green's take on the mainstream media:their inability or outright refusal to criticize the current corporate establishment,and how many journalists kneel at the altar of their corporate masters.

so while he makes a lot of great points.that particular glaring omission is disturbing.

speaking only for myself i tend to only consume independent media,and focus on journalists who have earned my trust.

ultimately it is up to us to decide who we trust and who we are suspicious of,and to discuss those important issues among ourselves to better refine our understandings.

@vil
hey,not a bad analysis there either my friend!

and i agree,the omission of turkey was glaring.

@radx and @enoch

radx said:
Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive.

enoch said:
i have considered his works and found them informative and reflective of our current situation.

just as i have found:howard zinn,noam chomsky,amy goodman,jeremy scahill,laura poitrus,glenn greenwald,paul jay,richard d wolffe.

All of the outlets and authors listed above have been very thorough or exhaustive in documenting the evils of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). The length, depth and detail they have all given and time spent documenting any and every instance is almost breath taking. For a long time, I sort of sat closer to you both by looking at the merits of each instance and case weeding through which stories were accurate, which ones were complete, which ones were misleading or fair. Lots and lots of the coverage from those groups and individuals were very accurate.

Here's the counter balance though, how much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to any positive outcomes of America or Capitalism(as represented by America). How much time, detail and effort have all of those groups combined given to the evils of any alternatives or opposing forces that would or did fill the voids were America isn't involved? It's crickets all around.

Chomsky's work alone could fill a library with the thorough documenting of America's evil corporate execution of class war on the workers of the world. How many books and documentaries can we count form the entire group that attempt anything similar for China, Russia, Middle Eastern nations, heck, the rest of the world combined?

I don't draw attention to this to point out that anything they have all observed is even wrong or incorrect. I draw attention to the glaring omission of similar documentation of alternatives. As it stands, a country like Russia couldn't dream of a better and more effective propaganda coup than the work of these groups and individuals. That doesn't in anyway say any of them are in allegiance with Russia, or even like anything about Russia. It still stands that even if Russia set out to discredit and smear America and leave itself looking clean, it couldn't pay people to do a better job of it. That's something worth considering and the deep, deep absence of balance and perspective that the listed sources represent is DAMAGING when taken in isolation.

Perhaps more pointedly, is the problem with Breitbart merely with it's fact checking department? They are, in as close as investigated them both, about on a Howard Zinn level for accuracy/honesty. None the less, it's the facts they willingly and knowingly leave out that makes them so damaging. The fact they fall right wing instead of left wing doesn't make their damage so much more appalling to me.

Here's the rub....
Shep Smith on Fox does some good work, and also some awful work for his propagandist bosses either spreading their lies or remaining silent in their face.
Maddow on MSNBC also does some good work, and also is incredibly biased and slanted and gladly omits or glosses over important facts if they don't fit her narrative.
CNN-I honestly don't know, I don't watch them either, but I gather they are also quite biased and guilty of lies by omission.

Hedges had other options. He was not relegated to RT, he chose to work there. Granted, they may be his most profitable option, they are not his only option.

Is RT a Russian propaganda channel, yes, absolutely. Does that mean Hedges is a Russian propagandist...yes, yes it does. He doesn't have to spread their lies and tow their line to be one, just his presence as an attempt to give their propaganda machine validity means he's a valuable tool they are using to spread lies. Let's see him do a story that accuses Putin or Russia of malfeasance....won't happen. That makes him a tool, even if he never lies for them.

@enoch,

I don't have any opinion on what Hedges says because I didn't take the time to listen to him...

Here was my bigger take away, an article posted by RT that is criticising negative press for Russia immediately gets filtered into my 99% likely hood of being misleading, either by outright lies or more often lies of omission.

Now, that filter got bypassed a bit seeing a recommendation from someone I deemed thoughtful on things. So, I went and did a 5 second google on the subject and found red flags immediately, so then I stopped again.

And Noam Chomsky has fallen off the rails IMHO. He's never going to lie, and he is incredibly intelligent, well reasoned and thoroughly knowledgeable. The catch is he is also biased in the sense of presenting everything he says over the last decade plus through the filter of American exceptionalism. He'll present mountains of accurate and compelling evidence of everything wrong about American foreign policy and the horrible impacts it has all around the world. Trouble is, he'll maybe give 2 sentences on the pre-American period or the alternative of American inaction.

In fact, as I wrote this I was going to blindly espouse that Chomsky's world view would council in favour of Clinton's inaction on Rwanda even with full hindsight. That prompted me to google for Chomsky's actual opinion on it, which led immediately to the fact that Chomsky wrote the forward for a book denying that the victims of Rwandan genocide were Tutsi but instead that they were in fact it's architects...

For the police that are pulling out, your countercurrentnews quoted the Dan County Sherrifs office as pulling out and not planning to return. The local news link they reference though tells much more than just the biased spin countercurrent put on it. Sheriff Mahoney cites the reason for pulling out was that their agreed on involvement was only ever for the week they were there and no future funding was offered so they would be sacrificing local services to go back.

Even more glaring an omission if Mahoney is to be championed as countercurrent did, he described his officers experience at the pipeline as follows:

“Our people have shined, they report they stood in line and were confronted with baseball bats and tire irons and being sprayed with wasp spray,” he said. “Our deputies said there was a need for law enforcement.”

The full local story free of countercurrent's extremely prejudiced and biased stripping is below if you want a more full story. Surprisingly, the police officers aren't all just showing up on the protesters own property to start shooting them with water, tear gas, and rubber bullets while the protesters huddle up and sing kumbaya.

http://m.bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/sheriff-in-wisconsin-pulls-deputies-back-from-north-dakota-pipeline/article_c0378e3a-8e57-59f1-99
75-781c35bf1ee1.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

No, I'm not wrong. Everyone has confirmation bias. Some people control it better than others.

It is as I have written. It doesn't matter where I learned the concept. I'm using the words correctly. Questioning that is a red herring.

I'm not saying Republicans aren't obstructionist. I'm saying that the Democrats are too. That's quantifiable. As is your confirmation bias and omission bias.

You're boring me so it's unlikely I'll engage you further.

Here's some lists for everyone (myself included) to learn a thing or two from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memory_biases

You have confirmation bias. It prevents you from seeing things objectively. This is common in a politically polarised country.

You may also have some omission bias.

OK, so cured meats cured with nitrates are now classified carcinogenic, but non cured meats, and meats cured without nitrates, salt, or smoke only "may" be slightly carcinogenic...or may not. So still, not all deli turkey, not all chicken nuggets (I make them at home from whole chicken with no preservatives) or bacon (I had some uncured bacon a few years back...it sucked, but it does exist)....so not ALL processed meats are in that category, and certainly not all nuggets, sliced turkey, or bacon...so exaggeration, even if you wish to say it's only exaggeration by omission of detail.

Because he strongly implies it's because they are meats, says "The World Health Organization recently published a report that puts chicken nuggets, deli turkey slices, bacon and other processed meats in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos: known carcinogens" without explanation, and extrapolates to imply that all meats are as carcinogenic as habitually smoking processed tobacco cigarettes.

In terms of disease, overall danger to a person's health, and morality, it's completely inaccurate, and grossly misleading. A processed plant diet (the norm) can be FAR worse for you and the environment than a sustainably raised, non processed meat based diet (which is not the norm). It's not cut and dry, details matter.
"The International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC) used clearly defined guidelines to identify hazards (qualitative evaluation), i.e. whether an agent can cause cancer, but IARC does not assess level or the magnitude of risk.
Even though smoking is in the same category as processed meat (Group 1 carcinogen), the magnitude or level of risk associated with smoking is considerably higher (e.g., for lung cancer about 20 fold or 2000% increased risk) from those associated with processed meat – an analysis of data from 10 studies, cited in the IARC report showed an 18 percent increased risk in colorectal cancer per 50g processed meat increase per day. To put this in perspective, according to the Global Disease Burden Project 2012, over 34,000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to high processed meat intake vs. 1 million deaths per year attributable to tobacco smoke."
source- https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/11/03/report-says-eating-processed-meat-is-carcinogenic-understanding-the-findings/
So, smoking =2000% greater risk, eating meat daily-18% greater risk....so not honestly equivalent by any stretch.

I would agree that switching from a processed meat based diet to a non processed plant based (not even necessarily pure vegetarian) diet, in general, might be equivalent to quitting smoking (but smoking how much, and smoking what, depends on MANY variable factors, and it appears it's generally equivalent to smoking <2 cigarettes per week, while breathing air in most cities is equivalent to smoking a pack a day).

Thanks, but don't be sorry, my life is good even with my issues.

Yes, unethical is still unethical, and lying is always unethical. Stop lying (by omission or exaggeration) and tell the whole truth about these things, even when some of that truth works against your goals/narrative, and I'll stop contradicting you. Your insistence on pretending the worst practices are the norm, and that ethical animal treatment is an outlier is my issue, because I know it's not true from actual experience, not propaganda. Read my comments carefully and you'll see my issue is with your exaggeration and hyperbolic blanket statements, not your goal to lessen animal suffering.

I think using exaggeration and lies to make a point is an admission that you have no honest point to make, or that you don't believe that the facts support you.
Since there is an issue with bad practices, I see the exaggeration and hyperbole as working AGAINST proper animal treatment....you offer people the opportunity to dismiss you completely when you do that. Tell the truth, the whole truth, and the clear truth, and I won't discredit anything, I won't be able to. The younger people need correct information, not exaggerated propaganda and lies. Only then can they make a real informed choice.
It's my same issue with the "truth" campaign against smoking. They lie and exaggerate, obfuscate and fabricate, and convince themselves the ends justify the means. I can almost never agree with that sentiment. Lies are lies and should be exposed at every chance, IMO.

Churchill is consistently misquoted by omission. He said:

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but the UK has had our Sanders moment and our Sanders (Jeremy Corbyn) won. He's had it very tough, receiving nothing but bad coverage from a very establishment controlled, rich elite controlled press. They lie about him or things that he has said either by omission or commission and establishment politicians within his own party try each week to cook up another scandal to weaken his leadership.

Getting them elected as a candidate is only the first very small step, but at least we did that. I believe that some other European countries have recently seen a surge in popularity for left-leaning candidates and/or have just managed to defeat a right wing candidate into power.

Having said all that, i think it was a joke. But if America finds itself in a position where it has a choice between idiocy and corruption it is only because of economic policy and the power/money/greed cycle which has led us to crony capitalism and neo liberalism. America led the developed world during that time period, so of course they would see the most extreme effects.

From the video description :

"Disclaimer: These are not the actual responses of the athletes featured in these clips. These are comments or questions asked of female athletes that we’ve adapted to fit these news clips, in order to show how ridiculous it is that female athletes are asked these questions."

I'm confused. It really would have been nice to put the disclaimer stating this pretty important distinction in the video BEFORE it started.

I'm honestly trying to understand the point being made via the selective editing and not actually showing real world like-for-like comparisons. It muddles the message for those who do recognize that and almost lies by omission to those who don't.

Is this hashtag movement honestly trying to suggest that male athletes (especially those who embody some of the more rock-star aspects of professional athletic stardom, which is after all an entertainment industry first and foremost) don't get asked inappropriate, shallow, or prurient questions all the fricking time?

The ominous music is telling me I should be concerned though, so I'll just go with it and not ask questions.