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OPINION: In case you hadnt noticed, theres yet another election looming and the honeyed words of persuasion are beginning to flood forth from all points of the political compass.

Were set to be bombarded with pre-cooked talking points, what the focus groups and super-secret internal polls are saying we should be told, what the advisers are advising, and who knows, maybe a decent, fact-based opinion or two, truly held, if were lucky.

Shame this isnt Finland its population similar to New Zealands. Are you kidding? Too cold, too close to Russia and too many strange habits, like doing weird things to each other with birch twigs, they say. And they dont speak English.

But heres the thing, apparently Finland tops the annual European index that measures resistance to fake news across 35 countries on that continent.

READ MORE:* Alison Mau: An election year to make George Orwell spin in his grave* Migrant kids are 'child actors', claims Ann Coulter, telling Donald Trump not to be fooled* When politicians hijack the pro-truth 'fact check'

Warwick Smith/Stuff

Keeping a close eye on what is said during an election campaign can be a bedazzling experience among the volume of pre-cooked sound bites and occasional strongly held views.

Fake news, before Donald Trump was invented, used to be known as plain old propaganda, false or misleading information or just liesbut where Washington goes, the rest of us follow, so fake news it is now, for the moment.

We know that when Trump moans about fake news, what he is really objecting to is something he disagrees with. If only people do what he does and get the facts from Fox News then there wouldnt be a problem, right?

Fox News is an experience all right, but its relationship with the real world is way too obscure for this news junkie.

Besides, there are, thankfully, alternatives that house a smorgasbord of offerings when it comes to trying to figure out whats going on around the planet.

Meanwhile, Finland, where the government, it is said, became fed up with being targeted by fake news stories out of neighbours Russia, decided the world had moved in to something called the post-fact age.

What to do?

Teach a counter-narrative, starting in the primary schools, thats what.

Begin with why fairytales work so well and take it from there, right through the years so you end up with a generation of young adults who can critically think for themselves.

OK, here our school curriculum is crowded and about to become more so when all our schools start teaching New Zealand history, assuming they get the resources and teachers from somewhere. As another aside, how many of our schools dont already teach NZ history? A few, some, lots?

Anyway, back in Finland, the clever things have incorporated aspects of critical thinking into various subjects across the curriculum. So, its not in a silo, Critical Thinking 101, or some such, as you might see at university.

Thus in maths, for example, students learn how easy it is to lie with statistics see any politician of your choice for a working example.

In art, they learn how an image is manipulated. A picture used to be said to be worth 1000 words. Now its not so simple.

In history, among other things, they get to dissect propaganda campaigns, again a useful skill to have come election time. And in language, theres a lot of fun to be had looking at how words can be used to deceive people and how they might mislead.

It would be a good idea to wheel in George Orwell at this point, because he penned the primer on English language and politics in an essay, while his novel 1984 also contains some pretty useful pointers when it comes to seeing what can be done with words. Democratic Peoples republics are still around even now. You know, the sort of place where leaders get a 99 per cent yes vote in elections. And the misguided 1 per cent are sent off to the countryside for a spot of re-education.

All this feeds into journalism, of course, and how it is ideally practised in places such as New Zealand, where facts are sacred but comment is free is the basic credo.

To get at the facts you need verifiable information though. In journalism, there are providing sources who are traditionally rated as reliable, such as the police, for instance. But of course, we live in an age where were drowning in social media and everyones facts are as good as the next persons. And science is horribly devalued. Perhaps well hurtle back in time to when religion and magic were deemed to explain the world.

But places such as Palmerston North are a bastion of education, so it is here, and in centres like us, where the struggle is being fought out.

Some of the signs are encouraging, especially when you look at the dire state of other parts, except Finland, it seems, and see what is occurring.

Alister Browne is an experienced Stuff scribe and former Press Gallery reporter who will write a weekly politics column

Read more here:
Beware politicians and their election-year tall tales - Stuff.co.nz

By Gulf Breeze News | on June 18, 2020

Recent actions by some state and city governments make me wonder if Ann Coulter was right when she stated Liberals Are Insane. For a government (city, county, state) to exist there must be order. In a free society, basic rules of decorum and respect for human rights are required.

All citizens in the USA have the right of assembly if that assembly is orderly and respectful of others. Recent protest marred by violence does not qualify for this right. Police hate blacks; therefore, the violence against them is justified! The facts show that 700 police have been hurt and 20 people have died during these so called peaceful demonstrations. Where is the concern and compassion for the police? One might note most of the violence occurred in cities run by liberal democrats. Violence and the destruction of private property negate any rational reason the demonstrators may have had. Mobs are useful tools for extremist. Vladimir Lenin called them useful idiots. Are you one?

Restoration of law and order is required if we are to survive as a free people. For the liberals that will flee these out of control cities, please do not bring you insane liberal philosophy to our fair city and state.

LARRY SESSIONSGulf Breeze

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Where is compassion for the police? - Gulf Breeze News

Sarah Paulson will once again be portraying a real-life person for Ryan Murphys FX anthology American Crime Story, but her transformation into former White House employee Linda Tripp in the upcoming fourth season, Impeachment, will entail much more work than the one she did to portray prosecutor Marcia Clark in Season 1, The People Vs. O.J. At least in the physical sense.

This is going to require a lot of things, Paulson said during Wednesdays Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Ill be wearing a lot of prosthetics and body transformational accoutrements, if thats a word I can use.

Tripp was a key figure in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998, a story that will be the focus of Crime Story Season 4. Impeachment: American Crime Story was originally scheduled to premiere this fall on FX but delayed back in January due to Murphys congested schedule. The season was just two weeks away from going into production when the pandemic hit. It was not long after that when Tripp passed away.

Also Read: 'American Horror Story' Season 10 Pushed to 2021, FX Orders Spinoff 'American Horror Stories'

And I dont know if I ever would have met Linda, or if Linda would have even been open to doing anything like that. But I got as many text messages when she passed away as if I had died or if she was my best friend, Paulson told Jimmy Kimmel. People were like, Im so sorry to hear about Linda and I was like, Im really sorry to hear about it too, but I didnt know her. And it was weird, because I had been spending so much time reading all these books and working with a dialect coach, so I was immersed in this. It was a very wild thing and it really did make me sad.

No new production start or premiere date has been set for Impeachment: American Crime Story, which also stars Clive Owen as Bill Clinton, Beanie Feldstein as Monica Lewinksy, Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones, Billy Eichner as Matt Drudge and Betty Gilpin as Ann Coulter.

Watch Paulsons interview with Kimmel above.

With all due respect to "America's Got Talent," summer is not exactly the time when Nielsen ratings threaten to fall off the charts -- at least, not the top of the charts. And when it comes to new series, a summer slot isn't generally a vote of confidence from the network.

Due to coronavirus production shutdowns, Summer 2020 should be an especially soft season. Click through our gallery to see how each freshman show's debut on broadcast television fared in total viewers.

Also Read: 2020-2021 TV Season: Every Broadcast Show Canceled, Renewed and Ordered So Far (Updating)

Rank: 6 Show: "Celebrity Watch Party" Net: Fox Total Viewers: 1.8 million

Rank: 5 Show: "The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons - Ever!" Net: ABC Total Viewers: 2.4 million

Rank: 4 Show: "The Genetic Detective" Net: ABC Total Viewers: 3.2 million

Rank: 3 Show: "Don't" Net: ABC Total Viewers: 4.2 million

Rank: 2 Show: "Game On!" Net: CBS Total Viewers: 4.5 million

Rank: 1 Show: "Ultimate Tag" Net: Fox Total Viewers: 4.6 million

Nielsen sheets are cooling off as the months warm up

With all due respect to "America's Got Talent," summer is not exactly the time when Nielsen ratings threaten to fall off the charts -- at least, not the top of the charts. And when it comes to new series, a summer slot isn't generally a vote of confidence from the network.

Due to coronavirus production shutdowns, Summer 2020 should be an especially soft season. Click through our gallery to see how each freshman show's debut on broadcast television fared in total viewers.

Also Read: 2020-2021 TV Season: Every Broadcast Show Canceled, Renewed and Ordered So Far (Updating)

Here is the original post:
Sarah Paulson Says Her Transformation Into Linda Tripp for 'American Crime Story' Will Require 'A Lot of Prosthetics' (Video) - TheWrap

President Trump tweeted out a false claim this week that the elderly protester shoved by police in Buffalo, New York, was a member of the anti-fascist political movement antifa. He is not.

Last Sunday, the president once again said he would designate antifa as a terrorist organization. He made the same remarks last year after antifa followers rumbled with the far-right group, the Proud Boys.

Antifa has never been accused of killing anyone, unlike the white supremacist hate group Ku Klux Klan, which is not declared a terrorist organization.

Attorney General William Barr says antifa was responsible for the looting and violence that cities across the U.S. witnessed early on in protests against George Floyds murder and police brutality against Black Americans.

However, federal court records show out of the 51 people facing federal charges, no one is alleged to have ties to the antifa movement, according to an NPR review.

Over the years, activists on the left have debated whether to disavow antifas tactics.

Antifa, a loose organization of sorts, has its roots in Germany and the United Kingdom during the uprising fascist movements of the 1920s and 30s, NBC News investigative reporter Brandy Zadrozny says.

The modern movement came to the U.S. in the 70s and 80s, and they were known for fighting skinheads at punk rock concerts, she says.

Their ideology is based around a hate for fascism and a belief that people who are thought to be fascists are inherently violent, she says. Antifa believes violence is a useful tactic to combat violence from the alt-right.

The idea is that if more people had brawled in the streets with actual Nazis then Hitler and the Nazi party would have never risen to power, Zadrozny says. So antifa has popped up again now with the election of Donald Trump, the rise of the alt-right and the rise of far-right extremists and white nationalist groups that have sort of come up all at the same time.

Antifa has no leader and no clear organization. However, there are organized, localized groups who have followings on social media, such as the Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon.

Many became aware of antifa as a political movement in 2017 when they showed up at the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally that gathered Nazis and white supremacists. In the same year, they helped stop Milo Yiannopoulos, a far-right political commentator and Trump supporter, from speaking at the University of California, Berkeley by smashing windows and lighting fires on campus. Berkeley decided to cancel the event after the uproar.

Antifas goal is to deny fascists and far-right activist a platform, she says. Because of this, the right has long defined antifa as positioning themselves against free speech.

And it's not just violence in the streets, she says. It's also coordinated campaigns to shame out [and] harass those on the far right.

Theyve targeted far-right pundit Ann Coulter and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, for example, and have doxxed people who are associated with alt-right groups. Theyve said their strategy is to dehood Klansmen, Zadrozny says.

Inciting street brawls, such as what Portland residents have experienced, is not part of their main activities, she says. However, thats how antifa has largely been positioned by their critics.

High-profile politicians have claimed that antifa is showing up in small towns and wreaking havoc during anti-racism demonstrations. Zadroznys reporting for NBC News has found those claims are part of a top-down disinformation campaign from the president and the president's allies down to local law enforcement and then through social media.

The result has been small groups of armed militias showing up to counterprotest Black Lives Matter demonstrations all over the country, she says, from Florida to Idaho and Oregon.

In Klamath Falls, Oregon, Zadrozny says hundreds of armed counterprotesters showed up ready to fight this invisible monster they heard about on social media. They believed antifa was coming to their town to murder people, murder white people and take their guns and destroy their town. Of course, antifa never came, she says.

Their presence did, however, intimidate a large group of diverse people who came together to peacefully protest police brutality in their small town, she says.

This doesnt mean that antifa hasnt shown up to protests against police brutality, she says. It would make sense they would be present because a large factor in antifa ideology is anti-racism, she explains.

There are concerns that at some point, some peaceful protesters might get accused of being antifa, like what happened to the elderly man in Buffalo. She says a vigilante mob mentality is taking over small towns.

For example, she says, a man armed with a chainsaw ran off protesters in McAllen, Texas. And in Forks, Washington, a multiracial family on a camping trip was harassed and trapped by locals who accused them of being with antifa.

It just seems like a powder keg, she says. And people that I've spoken to, activists from small towns to larger groups on Black Lives Matter side, they're very concerned for their safety.

Cassady Rosenblumproduced and edited this interview for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Serena McMahon adapted it for the web.

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What Is Antifa? Separating Fact From Fiction | Here & Now - Here And Now

Why is this case the one inciting mass protests? Ninety-nine percent of the country is denouncing the Minneapolis police in the most damnable terms possible over the death of George Floyd. The 99% are demanding that the 1% hear their voices?

The arrest certainly looks awful. Everything is going along relatively peacefully as Floyd is walked to a police van, then theres some commotion out of sight of the camera and suddenly you see Floyd pinned to the ground, an officers knee on his neck. How did that happen?

One reason some of us are waiting for all the facts is that we suspect the media may not be extra scrupulous in cases that give them the opportunity to wail about systemic racism.

It turns out, for example, Floyd didnt die of asphyxiation. According to the Hennepin County medical examiners report cited in the criminal complaint charging Officer Derek Chauvin with murder, he died of a heart attack.

The autopsy also found Floyd had fentanyl in his system, had recently used methamphetamine, had coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. Two weeks ago, this would have been another COVID-19 death.

According to Nexis, these official autopsy findings have not been reported at all on MSNBC and only briefly to be explained away on CNN. (The familys private autopsy concluding Floyds death was caused by strangulation has been widely reported.)

It could still be murder, but the I cant breathe slogans arent quite accurate.

Aw, theyve already made their protest signs, and wed have to re-do the chyrons does it really matter?

There also hasnt been loads of reporting on Floyds five years in prison for armed robbery. I know the guy has just died, and he seemed to have turned his life around, but the media isnt holding a memorial service. Theyre supposed to be reporting news. How about an interview with Floyds victims? Wouldnt that be a newsy segment?

Again, according to Nexis, Floyds armed robbery conviction has been fleetingly mentioned only once on ABC News and once on Fox News.

The other reason some of us are waiting for all the facts can be summed up with two words: Rodney King.

That arrest looked pretty bad, too. The jury forewoman on the first trial said that when she saw the King video on television, I was revulsed. ... I thought they were hitting that poor man too hard and too long.

But at the trial a year later, she got to see the 13 seconds of video that had been deliberately edited out by the media: the 6-foot-4, 240-pound King rising like a phoenix and charging at one of the officers.

The video that played on an endless loop on TV showed only the tail end of the encounter, when officers were whacking King with their batons.

In fact, however, the beating was the officers last resort for subduing King, whod just led them on a high-speed car chase, at times reaching speeds of up to 115 mph, drawing several police cars and a police helicopter.

Once stopped, Kings two (black) passengers exited the car and got on the ground, as instructed. They went home without a scratch that night.

But King leapt out and began dancing and babbling, crouching, kneeling, laughing and waving to the police helicopter overhead. Both the officers and Kings passengers believed he was high on angel dust.

The senior officer, Sgt. Stacey Koon, ordered the officers to back away and holster their guns. He didnt want to risk a fatal encounter.

Four officers tried swarming King he threw them off his back like rag dolls. A dart from a Taser gun did nothing.

Then another also nothing. King lunged at an officer and got hit with a baton, but kept on raging. The police were running out of options that would allow everyone to stay alive.

Thats when three officers began hitting King with their metal batons, under the supervision of Sgt. Koon. If King moved, they whacked him. Finally, they managed to double-cuff him the procedure for suspects on PCP and put him in an ambulance to the hospital.

When Sgt. Koon first heard that the arrest had been captured on video, he was ecstatic. This is great! he said. They got it on tape! Now well have a live, in-the-field film to show police recruits. It can be a real-life example of how to use escalating force properly.

Not only the jurors, but nearly everyone who saw the first trial ended up supporting the acquittal, including Roger Parloff, a liberal legal reporter who sat through most of the trial for the American Lawyer, and Lou Cannon, who covered it for The Washington Post. The renowned (black) economist Walter Williams was shocked by the news medias dereliction and deception in their editing of the tape.

All this is detailed in my book Mugged, but at the time, the public knew none of it, thanks to our activist media.

The endlessly played Rodney King video hid the same part of Floyds arrest thats being withheld today. Doesnt anyone else wonder how Floyd ended up on the ground? Where are those videos?

Nah, its much easier and cost-free! to Speak Truth to the 1%.

Link:
Ann Coulter: On the other hand, there's Rodney King - Today's News-Herald