I just got a new “Tinfoil Hat” and I’m itching to try it out. The Las Vegas incident seems like an ideal opportunity.
While it is too soon to know if there are signs that the Las Vegas attack was a false flag, possibly supported
and enabled by what Ron Paul and others refer to as the Deep State, anyone who does not at least ask the question has not been paying attention.
There is convincing evidence that law enforcement is not telling us the whole story.
There is no need to resort to “conspiracy sites.” All of the evidence can be found reported in the back pages of mainstream sources.
So what’s the “official story”?
Well, it’s been changed a few times, and some of the details are simply impossible.
For one thing, the police claim that it took them 72 minutes to gain entrance to the room.
Huh? An hour and a quarter? Cudditout!
Any respectable SWAT team can break into an alleged drug dealer’s home in about three seconds.
So, Paddock reinforced the door? I’ll give them 6 seconds. Being generous, I’ll give them 6 minutes.
Anything longer is a boondoggle.
And how about the fuel tanks?
Oh, you never heard about them, did you?
About 2000 feet from Mandalay Bay, sit two huge tanks, used to store aviation fuel for nearby McCarran
International Airport.
It could have been far worse. The shooter targeted these tanks during his rampage.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that “Las Vegas Strip mass murderer Stephen
Paddock used his Mandalay Bay hotel room to spray massive aviation fuel tanks with bullets Sunday night.” (They assume Paddock was the shooter).
Fortunately, and to his chagrin, the tanks proved invulnerable to his attack.
The Review-Journal goes on: “The bullets left holes, but did not penetrate the two circular white tanks, sparing
the nearby Route 91 Harvest country music festival from a potentially massive explosion” and “Within the past couple of days, construction crews repaired and painted the holes, and FBI agents inspected the tanks and took measurements of the line of fire from Mandalay Bay.”
Hmm.
So, what does my tinfoil hat tell me?
Suppose Paddock was undercover for one of the “alphabet” agencies, and the operation was a setup to try to
entrap and ensnare some ISIS type people. The guns were bait for some kind of arms deal that didn’t quite come off.
Paddock may have inadvertently tipped his hand and the Terrorists took over, murdering him and then spraying the concert goers.
That doesn’t adequately explain the tanks, but somebody shot at them, Why?
The hand of man
Deep State will always trigger conspiracy theories comments. The idea of a deep-state has been thought to be post 9/11. In actually, deep-states have existed for as long as there have been the powerful and wealthy. The only reason why deep-states would be talked up as “conspiracy theories” is because the general public is not supposed to be aware of them. Duh?
In fact, you can apply deep-state to any extreme incident, real or imagined. Remember, only the deep-staters are supposed to know for sure, not John Q. Public.
There are two forces at work, then, actual deep-state widespread shenanigans and people who think there are deep-states, but by supposition and inference only. Therefore, both deep-states and the suspicious public are quite correctly to be seen as real and theoretical.
Not only are deep-states real, they are in every country, not just countries like Russia or Turkey. Secrecy is the source of very real power and will always be so, because like so many of the human conditions, they are essentially born predators.
While the other predatory species will at times prey on each other, the human species the most cannibalistic of any species. We consume from within and without, with the specialty of preying on each other. In the United States it’s called capitalism….cannibalism in corporate retail, business, finance, markets, social unequally, land and resource distribution, warfare, destruction of habitats, ideologies and most things grasped from the hand of “man.”
conspiracy theory
I very recently saw an article (I didn’t save the URL) that claimed the term “conspiracy theory” was originated by the CIA to automatically discredit anybody who promoted anything different from whatever “official story” they were pushing at the time.
Works pretty well, doesn’t it?
term "conspiacy theory"
I , too, have read that the CIA was responsible for inventing the term “Conspiracy Theory” to discredit skeptics of the official version of President Kennedy’s assassination.
I found when doing some research, that they didn’t invent the term “Conspiracy Theory”, according to this information ……..in fact it had been in use for 70 years prior to the Kennedy assassination era. The article goes on to suggest that rather than having been invented at that time, the claim was that it was popularized to discredit or dismiss skeptics of the official “lone gunman” narrative.
https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-the-cia-invented-the-term-conspiracy-theory-in-1967-in-use-for-70-years-prior.t960/
If I Ran The Deep State...
… I would make sure that anytime there is any major event of any type, that my crew would get out and call it a conspiracy of the deep state.
By doing it after ever single event, rather than during real deep state operations only, cover is provided. It becomes as easy to disregard “conspiracy nuts” as it is to ignore a boy crying wolf for the umpteempth time, and if I can get everyone to tune those folks out, I can then get away with whatever I want. (Evil laugh goes here…)
I think this really happens, or so it seems- there are similar “false flag” stories out there about Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Orlando, the California wild fires, hurricane damage, the white nationalist rallies, 9-11, elections, and so on. Pick any recent event and someone (often Alex Jones) has instant alternatives.
Not everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes things just happen! Sometimes, though, people do conspire (rather often, actually, but not always for evil), but we’re well-trained to dismiss any mention of conspiracy as crazy talk. Because Alex Jones.
Back to me running the deep state – I plan to give Jones a raise for being so helpful.
History
When you examine history and you eliminate the natural disasters (at least most of them), what’s left is a chronicle of conspiracies (not all of them evil, by the way).
Why does anybody believe that things are different today?
Great Title
Grotke gets some kind of award for: If I Ran The Deep State…
Just think of what Dr. Suess could have done with that. (Bannon already looks like a Suess character… oh, and what about the big orange guy?
Grotke’s idea of blaming everything that happens on the deep state is excellent… he missed his calling, the CIA could use a mind like that.
Tin Foil Hat
Nice Tie!
Or whatever it is.
ADORABLE!
You have a bird-bat with orange flu disease growing out of your chest.
A bird-bat? Orange flue disease?
Now I am really mad… the guy at the pet store lied to me. He told me I was taking home a dragon pup. And he made no mention of an orange disease, or any disease for that matter!
Something for everyone
I always look after any major awful thing to see what the conspiracy theories are. For instance, sometimes something like the Las Vegas shootings happen and you think, they’re going to call that one a false flag, and sure enough they do. Trouble is, they always raise interesting questions that would be a lot less interesting if they were dispelled, which sometimes they are and sometimes not.
I ran into a bunch of conspiracy stuff on the forest fires in Napa and Sonoma counties which were pretty incredible in terms of size, speed, and destructiveness. People were saying that the government (or shadowy forces) had used microwave or laser technology to utterly destroy homes while leaving trees standing. A lot of these videos seemed to be posted by End Times Watchers. But the pictures were incredible. I’ve never seen such devastation from a forest fire.
Things are very messed up right now. People always look for meaning when bad chaotic disasters happen in clusters, like they are right now. I think conspiracy theories are a way of answering “why” even if they turn out to be wrong.
Afterthought
The tin foil hats posted here are amazing — among the best I’ve ever seen and a lot nicer than mine! 😉
Las Vegas anomalies (or maybe “anoma-LIES” ?)
Jesus Campos, the security guard shot before the rampage, appears to have vanished after appearing with Ellen DeGeneres.
A security guard has been stationed outside his home.
From Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Dispatch Scanner Audio (Provided by Broadcastify)
“CONFIRMED there are at least 2 shooters with fully automatic weapons,” (18:54 in the recording.)
Multiple scenes then developed across Las Vegas, with police reporting and confirming multiple active shooters at the Tropicana and NY, NY Hotel-Casino
“CONFIRMED – Giles and Alibaba, casualties, East of the Catholic Shrine. SO WE HAVE TWO SCENES!,”( 38:30 in the recoding), confirming that there were casualties at Giles and Alibaba, a location out of range of Stephen Paddock’s gunfire from the Mandalay Bay.
Here’s another one:
Kymberley Suchomel, 28, who attended the Harvest Music Festival, passed away Monday at her home just days after she had survived the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history unscathed.
Suchomel posted her eyewitness account of the Las Vegas massacre in astonishingly vivid detail to her Facebook page on Oct. 4, claiming ‘100% more than one’ shooter and contradicting the official narrative that Stephen Paddock is a lone gunman.
She subsequently passed away in her home on Oct. 9 from what reports are claiming were ‘natural causes.’
And, now, the “Biggie”!
George Soros Had A $42 Million Short Open On MGM http://investmentwatchblog.com/whoa-soros-had-a-42-million-short-open-on-mgm/
MGM’s CEO, James Murren, also divested himself of 80% of the shares he owned in the company. The divestment came just days before the dividend date on September 8th, 2017.
“I just got a new “Tinfoil Hat” and I’m itching to try it out.”
I don’t think your tin foil hat would be very useful or protective. Anyway, since some of your conspiracy topics are based on your maybes, you stand behind an agnostic shield.
I think the mainstream media hasn’t jumped on this because, like the police, they tend to rely on evidence, (not saying they do a perfect job, but…). While police scanners are what’s happening in progress, they do not report reliable information but leads for the police to check out. It’s not unusual for the situation to change as the police continue their investigation.
However, Snopes does do a credible job of fact finding and they cannot confirm what this posted article and the author’s comments report here.
https://www.snopes.com/2017/10/14/survivor-las-vegas-mass-shooting-dies-suddenly/
https://www.snopes.com/2017/10/12/conspiracy-theories-las-vegas-mass-shooting/
Snopes also reported this about Kymberley Suchomel: “Suchomel, 28, who was not injured during [the] shooting, died early [October 9] at her Apple Valley home, according to her grandmother, Julie Norton, the co-founder of the High Desert Phoenix Foundation. Norton found Suchomel just after 8:30 a.m. when she arrived to care for her 3-year-old great-granddaughter, Scarlett. She believes Suchomel may have died in her sleep after her husband, Mike, left for work at 4:30 a.m.
“Kymberley had epilepsy and she’s always been prone to seizures — she told her friend that she recently had three focal seizures,” Norton told the Daily Press. “I believe the stress from the shooting took her life.” Suchomel, who was taking medication for a pituitary tumor, shared her fear of trying to fall sleep at night as the “sounds of gunfire” become louder in her head and the images of “broken and bloody bodies” flashed through her mind.”
HUH?
“I think the mainstream media hasn’t jumped on this because,,,they tend to rely on evidence”
They write what they’re told to write. (By the Deep State). Otherwise, they lose “access”.
Who writes “what they’re told to write. By the Deep State"
The following statistics, meant to be illustrative, are only part of the picture to indicate how many people, if you go by what tomaidh says, “write what they’re told to write. By the Deep State.“
It’s impossible to say how many journalists there are in the world. The “International Federation of Journalists” is thought have about 600,000 members. In 2016, there were over 33,000 full time journalists employed in the U.S., with overall more than 183,000 newspaper employees.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics defines “Reporters and Correspondents” as people who “Collect and analyze facts about newsworthy events by interview, investigation, or observation, report and write stories for newspaper, news magazine, radio, or television. (Excludes “Broadcast News Analysts)””, that, in May 2016 employed over 41,000 people… at nearly 1,400 daily newspapers in the United States.
As of March 2011 there were “14,728 full power radio stations (AM/FM, 1,774 full power TV stations: 1,022 UHF commercial, 360 VHF commercial, 285 UHF educational, and 107 VHF educational.”
Just to clarify-
Mainstream media is a term used to refer collectively to the various large mass news media that influence a large number of people, and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thought. The term is used to contrast with alternative media which may contain content with more dissenting thought as they do not reflect prevailing opinion.
The term is often used for large news conglomerates, including newspapers and broadcast media. The concentration of media ownership has raised concerns of a homogenization of viewpoints presented to news consumers. Consequently, the term mainstream media has been widely used in conversation and the blogosphere, often in oppositional, pejorative, or dismissive senses, in discussion of the mass media and media bias.
According to philosopher Noam Chomsky, media organizations with an elite audience such as CBS News and The New York Times, successful corporations with the assets necessary to engage in original reporting, set the tone for other smaller news organizations which lack resources by creating conversations that cascade down to smaller news organizations using the Associated Press and other means of aggregation. An elite mainstream sets the agenda and smaller organizations parrot it.
Over time the rate of media mergers has increased, while the number of media outlets has also increased. This has resulted in a higher concentration of ownership, with fewer companies owning more media outlets. In 1983, 90% of US media was controlled by fifty companies; today, 90% is controlled by just six companies:
• COMCAST – NBC, Telemundo, Universal Pictures, Focus Features. USA Network, Bravo, CNBC, The Weather Channel, MSNBC, Syfy, NBCSN, Golf Channel, Esquire Network, Cloo, Chiller, Universal HD and Comcast SportsNet
• WALT DISNEY – ABC. ESPN, Disney Channel, A&E and Lifetime,
• NEWS CORP – Fox. Fox News, Fox Business, Fox Sports, 21st Century Fox, National Geographic, FX, FXX and FX Movies
• TIME WARNER – CNN, HBO, Cinemax, TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, Warner Bros. Castle Rock, and New Line.
• VIACOM – MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, VH1, BET, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures, and Paramount Entertainment.
• CBS – CBS Television Network, CBS Sports, Showtime, TVGN, CBS Radio, CBS Studios, and Simon & Schuster.
Information on Newspapers is harder to come by. They have been published in the United States since the 18th century. Although a few including the New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal are sold throughout the United States, most are published for city or regional markets. Many are published by the conglomerates named above; some by syndicates and chains.
“Mainstream media newspapers in total collapse: readership plunges 80% – The number of daily newspapers has gone from a crest of about 1,800 per 100 million people in 1945 to about 400 now.” Courtesy: “Natural News”
Six major Newspaper syndicates are:
• Creators Syndicate
• King Features
• Senior Wire
• Tribune Content Agency
• Universal uClick (includes Universal Press Syndicate and United Features Syndicate)
• Washington Post Writers Group
(Doesn’t include independent news services, such as The Associated Press and Reuters.)
Chain news services include Tribune News Service, New York Times News Service and Gannett Co. (USA Today).
Kudos to Wikipedia
All the back pages of mainstream sources?
Little to none of this goes by way way of explaining your allegations that the Las Vegas shootings were a conspiracy theory when you write:
“There is convincing evidence that law enforcement is not telling us the whole story. There is no need to resort to ‘conspiracy sites.’ All of the evidence can be found reported in the back pages of mainstream sources.”
“…can be found reported in the back pages of mainstream sources.”
Really? Perhaps then you can provide the sources or links that you’ve found on the “back pages of mainstream sources.”
[Yes, kudos to Wikipedia. I like how easy it is to copy and paste from there. I’m sure a lot more informative than your tin foil hat. :)]
Do your own research
I’m not going to give you my sources so you can look them up and attempt to refute them.
I’m sure you will be able to think up a salty comment on this as well.
What are the "fair fight" rules?
On the surface of it, refusing to give your sources because someone may then attempt to refute them is one of the most stupid things I have read on ibrattleboro. However when you add: “I’m sure you will be able to think up a salty comment on this as well,” it suddenly makes some sense, given that individual’s history and habitual practices.
Ideally, each participant in an adult conversation values a strong, respectful, factual and logical refutation so that the discuss might clear away mistakes, and bring us closer to an accurate understanding.
Could it be that not everyone who writes on this forum actually does so with the purpose of shedding light on the subject?
The verbiage further expressed
Let’s start with the Urban dictionary for “salty comment”: The act of being upset, angry, or bitter as result of being made fun of or embarrassed. Also a characteristic of a person who feels out of place or is feeling attacked.
None of these def’s are applicable here in regards to me, however, conversely they might apply to the tomaidh feller.
My comment from 12:27pm was pretty easy to understand, with no sodium content. If the LV shootings can indeed, be explained via “All of the evidence can be found reported in the back pages of mainstream sources,” why not simply compose his article from the start by citing those very same “mainstream sources” instead of beating around the bush with his agnostic role playing.
The verbiage further expressed below tomaidh, that, me, tomaidh or anyone of us commenters on this site need a referee, howsoever, unrelated, but strange it may be, is rather amusing. None of us really need an old schoolmarm, trilling over us, lecturing on rules, shedding light, and what not, now do we?{smile}
No, Vidda, as fairly
No, Vidda, as fairly intelligent, aware and mostly articulate adults I don’t think there is a need for a watchdog hovering over each post to make sure we’re all telling the truth and playing well with others. Chris and Lise do a good job of speaking up when they think something or someone is out of order.
But, just because we don’t need a watchdog doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of people out there excited to take on the job.
Unrelated, but strange
Santa Rosa CA – Dozens of houses burned literally to the ground while dozens of green trees appear unscathed (Not all the trees)
The homes and everything in them turned to white ash, yet the pine trees did not burn up. Why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRmwz32uot0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbTQtdZJpmQ
Some answers?
Could it be the smart meters that caused the fires in the homes? Carolann Stinedurf
That fire was man made 100% meaning from satellites or some sort of man-made weapon for sure. Juan Carlos Tapia
This could be the same technology used on 9/11. Gerry Amery
Watch and see who buys up the land afterwards. “Mo”
Amazing what you find on You Tube: The Rapture is coming on October 21, 2017 Vikas Solanki (Hallelujah).
(That’s today, folks. Stay off the highways! )
Some updates from Vegas
Las Vegas shooter’s laptop missing its hard drive
A laptop computer recovered from the Las Vegas hotel room where Stephen Paddock allegedly launched the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was missing its hard drive. Paddock is believed to have removed the hard drive before fatally shooting himself and the missing device has not yet been recovered. The absence of substantial digital clues has left investigators struggling to piece together what triggered Paddock to kill 58 and injure more than 500 others. Other mass shooters in the United States have left behind writings, manifestos or even videos explaining their actions. Paddock, however, left behind no such writings or evidence.
http://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/las-vegas-shooters-laptop-missing-hard-drive/story?id=50709285
The brother of the Vegas shooter is in police custody
Bruce Paddock, brother of Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock was arrested in Los Angeles Wednesday on child pornography charges stemming from an investigation that predates the massacre. The LAPD said the images were discovered inside a building where Paddock had been squatting. A felony complaint said he had over 600 explicit images of minors.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amp/vegas-gunman-stephen-paddock-s-brother-custody-child-porn-probe-n811461
Private paramilitary firm worked hand-in-hand with LVMPD on the night of the Las Vegas massacre
A private company named Battlefield Vegas worked hand-in-hand with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department after receiving orders to deliver three armored vehicles to South Central Area Command as strike teams were being dispatched to numerous casinos along the strip…What were these vehicles used for? What’s the connection?
https://www.intellihub.com/private-paramilitary-firm-worked-hand-in-hand-with-lvmpd-night-las-vegas-massacre/
Missing Las Vegas Shooting Witness Shot Dead Outside Church
Chad Nishimura, a valet worker at the Mandalay Bay hotel who parked the suspected Las Vegas shooting gunman’s car and gave an interview saying Stephen Paddock was a “normal guy” who “didn’t have many bags” has been found dead outside a central Las Vegas Valley church, apparently a victim of a robbery.
http://www.nnettle.com/news/2976-missing-las-vegas-shooting-witness-shot-dead-outside-church
Private footage shows over a dozen ambulances “removing bodies” from Hooters Casino during the Las Vegas massacre
Video footage captured privately on the night of the massacre shows over a dozen ambulances seemingly removing human bodies from the Hooters Casino and Hotel, contradicting the official narrative. According to a description of the events by the citizen who filmed the footage, “They are just pulling so many bodies out of Hooters. I don’t know if people are dead, I don’t know if people are just injured, they just keep pulling them out though…. something definitely happened at Hooters.” (The distance from Mandalay Bay to Hooters is ¾ of a mile in a straight line. I think it’s possible these were concertgoer bodies)
https://www.intellihub.com/bombshell-footage-shows-over-a-dozen-ambulances-removing-from-hooters-hotel-las-vegas-massacre/
Militay/Media connection
There’s still very many questions surrounding how the Las Vegas Shooting unfolded, the back story of the suspected shooter, law enforcement’s response to the shootings, and why evidence such as the hotel’s surveillance footage has yet to be released….but I keep reminding myself to suspend my judgements about this event until more facts come to the surface, and I have time to delve into the stories of eye witness accounts, and the complexity of the seeming contradictory reports between eyewitnesses and the mainstream media outlets.
But I would like to point out that this whole notion of “conspiracy theories” has been going on for a long time, and much of it can be associated with military-corporate-media connection in the this country. I think it reasonable to ask…. Is there a powerful global dominance group inside the US government, the US media, and the national policy structure for the advancement of the US military domination of the world ?.
As this Project Censored 2010 article points out……..
http://projectcensored.org/truth-emergency-inside-the-military-industrial-media-empire/
“The corporate media in the US like to think of themselves as the most accurate news reporting source of the day. The New York Times motto of “all the news that’s fit to print” is a clear example of this perspective, as is CNN’s “most trusted name in news” and Fox News Channel’s “We Report, You Decide” or “Fair and Balanced.” However, with corporate media coverage that increasingly focuses on a narrow range of celebrity updates, news from “official” government sources, and sensationalized crimes and disasters, the self-justification of being the most fit is no longer valid in the US. In fact, several studies done by Diane Farsetta at the Center for Media Democracy showed Pentagon propaganda penetration on mainstream corporate news in the guise of retired Generals as “experts” or pundits who turned out to be nothing more than paid shills for government war policy. While the Pentagon claimed this was legal, the Pentagon Inspector General’s office rescinded a report of the most recent propaganda investigation and even removed the report from its website because the office concluded the study “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.”
That article was from 2010, and today, 7 years later we appear to be even more embroiled in wars throughout the world , most notable in the Mideast , but also about to ramp things up in Africa, and God forbid what things could look like if we continue to saber rattle and bluster our way into war with either or all of North Korea, Russia , China, & Iran. The mainstream media has quite a history with being the driving force behind some of most deceptive reporting and militaristic propaganda campaigns which have allowed the conditions for worldwide violent conflict .
Here is something from Feb.2017 by Patrick Henningsen, of the 21st Century Wire, with a detailed list of conflicts which occured, in large part, to the lies and war propaganda from the Military/Media connection…….
http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/02/14/fake-news-week-a-guide-to-mainstream-media-fake-news-war-propaganda/
More conspiracy theory stuff
Air traffic control audio from the night of the Las Vegas shooting reveals there were “active shooters on the runway”
McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.
Tower audio proves there were many assailants operating in conjunction with one another on the night of the massacre, Stephen Paddock didn’t act alone
https://www.intellihub.com/air-traffic-control-audio-reveals-active-shooters-runway/
21st Century Wire - no evidence of impartiality
Fact checking and further investigation is recommended on a per article basis when obtaining information from 21st Century Wire.
21 Wire is conspiracy and fake news with an extreme right bias. Additionally, their headlines are sensationalist and largely misleading. It is an alternative news website that rejects the consensus of science regarding climate change and also promotes the conspiracy that mainstream media is publishingfake news.
21st Century Wire falls into the conspiracy-pseudoscience category and may publish unverifiable information that is not always supported by evidence. It may be untrustworthy for credible/verifiable information, therefore fact checking and further investigation is recommended on a per article basis when obtaining information from these sources.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/21st-century-wire
futher investigation
I haven’t been able to keep up with this thread due to work commitments & other events in my life , but would like to follow up on this…
Your post is a copy & paste from the website Media Bias/ Fact Check (MBFC), specifically from their page with their assessment of Patrick Henningsen’s “21st Century Wire”.
“Fact checking and further investigation is recommended on a per article basis when obtaining information from 21st Century Wire.”
Yes, I definitely agree with that, and the information on the page makes some valid points. But I am somewhat confused about how the information is framed on that particular page. My confusion is about who said what, because Dave Van Zandt of MBFC clearly states the following…..
“Notes: 21st Century Wire is an alternative news website that rejects the consensus of science regarding climate change and also promotes the conspiracy that mainstream media is publishing fake news. This source has also received an unproven claim by Snopes, which 21st Century Wire considers a questionable source. The website Fort Liberty has placed 21st Century Wire on it’s Fake News/Hoax list. I disagree with Fort Liberty that 21st Century is a publisher of fake news. 21st Century employs somewhat sensational headlines and does provide sourcing to attempt to support claims. The primary issue is that 21st Century publishes some questionable stories (see examples above) that are embedded among legitimate stories they publish. This can mislead the reader. (D. Van Zandt 7/20/2016)”
……But then the page immediately follows with….
“Notes# 2: 21st Century Wire is conspiracy and fake news with an extreme right bias. Additionally, their headlines are sensationalist and largely misleading.”
…….and then goes for a number of paragraphs deriding 21st Century Wire, Henningsen, and Eva Bartlett as bias,conspiratorial, purveyors of Fake News and ends with (D. Kelley 2/15/2017).
So, my question is, was it D.Kelly in 2/15/17 who submitted all the info after the paragraph by D.Van Zandt 7/20/2016 (which I inserted above)? Who is D.Kelly? Is he affiliated with Media Bias/ Fact Check, Fort Liberty, or perhaps neither?
I ,too, have a few issues with 21st Century Wire, but they don’t prevent me from appreciating the efforts of the on the ground reporting by Henningsen, Vanessa Beeley, and Eva Bartlett from Syria, and now Iraq. Last week Patrick Henningsen was in Baghdad, Iraq attending a conference on International Terrorism with journalists and reporters from around the world.
I would address the issues brought up on this page at MBFC, but would first like to clear up the confusion I have about who is saying what. Can anyone help me? Thank you.
The horse has left the barn
The purpose of me providing the source (link) of the info that I “copied and paste” into my reply, from [https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/21st-century-wire ], was to let people go directly to the source and read for themselves (and, of course, to see that I am copying the views from that site, which may or may not be the same as mine.)
I was not faced with confusion because in pasting information from any site implies that one should really see for themselves in more detail, and not take my word for it.
I am glad to see you used the link to do just that.
Perhaps, though, before you posted your comment above, “Here is something from Feb.2017 by Patrick Henningsen, of the 21st Century Wire, with a detailed list of conflicts which occured, in large part, to the lies and war propaganda from the Military/Media connection.’ from the 21stcenturywire.com link, would it have been more useful for you to clear up your confusions about “who is saying what.”?
You asked so many good questions after you let the horse out of the barn. 🙂
horse & barn?
Vidda…..Thanks for the feedback.
You said….
“Perhaps, though, before you posted your comment above, “Here is something from Feb.2017 by Patrick Henningsen, of the 21st Century Wire, with a detailed list of conflicts which occured, in large part, to the lies and war propaganda from the Military/Media connection.’ from the 21stcenturywire.com link, would it have been more useful for you to clear up your confusions about “who is saying what.”?”
I posted your above quote of mine on October 31, 2017 – 12:44pm
You then posted your reply to my 12:44pm comment, giving the link to Media Bias/Fact Check wesite at 10:58 pm the same day……..roughly 10 hours later.
I had no knowledge of the Media Bias/Fact Check website prior to your posting the link.to it at 10:58pm, therefore the question in my mind about “who is saying what” (on the MBFC page) was non-existent at 12:44pm.
How could I have cleared up something about which I knew nothing about until roughly 10 hrs later? 🙂
The horse never left its stable
Ah ha! As you say.
Then you’re not alone in saying “I haven’t been able to keep up with this thread due to work commitments & other events in my life.”
You are so right! I was not paying attention to the chronology. In that case, whatever confusions may have arisen with you I’m sure the author of this piece or some industrious reader will answer your questions.
Now that, as I continue about my events, I will await the answers to the questions you raised. Thank you!
thanks!
Vidda……thank you for your fair & honest exchange with me.
I will let you know, via this thread, if I find anything more concerning the questions I raised.
The thread
Awesome Whitey!
questions about Media Bias/Fact Check
Well, I found out who’s who at Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) by looking into their “About” section.
From the “About” page at MBFC……
“Dave Van Zandt is the primary editor for sources. He is assisted by a collective of volunteers who assist in research for many sources listed on these pages.”
Dennis Kelly (D.Kelly) is one of the volunteer researchers at MBFC.
Let me just say that after reading much of the MBFC website including their FAQ and Methodology sections, I would applaud Dave Van Zandt with his efforts at creating an internet based comprehensive media bias resource.
It is not an easy task.
Impartiality is a tricky thing, as illustrated from his FAQ…..
Are your ratings objective?
“All sources are rated objectively using our methodology which calculates a score. However, every source on this website has been reviewed by a human being, who certainly does have bias. This means that a different reviewer using our methodology may come up with a slightly different score. Our testing has concluded that people from different political affiliations have similar scores once they understand how to apply the methodology. So, the answer is ratings are somewhat subjective.”
Also, from the Methodology section…
Methodology-Questionable Sources
“.Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for the purpose of profit or influence.”
“We may occasionally label a source “fake news”, but this is designated specifically for a 100% hoax websites. We also classify “hate groups” in this category.”
With reference to their write-up on 21st Century Wire, there are two ratings , one by Dave Van Zandt (Notes), and the other by D. Kelly (Notes #2)
I would agree with Dave Van Zandt’s rating , in that he thinks it not a Fake news site, but can mislead the reader, the primary issue being that the 21st Century Wire publishes some questionable stories that are embedded among legitimate stories they publish.
I do take issue, though, with the MBFC researcher Dennis Kelly (D.Kelly)
D.Kelly says….“Notes# 2: 21st Century Wire is conspiracy and fake news with an extreme right bias. Additionally, their headlines are sensationalist and largely misleading.”….
21st Century Wire is a conspiracy and conjecture site run by Patrick Henningsen. Henningsen has ties to both Infowars and Alex Jones, also known for fake news and broad conspiracies. They also seem to have ties to, or at least to be pro Russian in much of their content. Specifically Russian Times (RT) the state run Russian news outlet. While they claim to present news from both the left and the right I saw no evidence of impartiality or opinions from the left in any of the stories I read.”
(my emphasis in bold)
In fact, the very article that D.Kelly goes on to reference is this one…..
http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/02/23/the-mainstream-media-contortionists-and-their-fake-news-circus/
Vanessa Beeley, a member of the 21st Century Wire’s editorial team, posted the article featured on that page, which was published in the Dissident Voice, a clearly leftist Newsletter The article is titled “Assessing Media Bias”
https://dissidentvoice.org/2017/02/assessing-media-bias/
……and was written by Yves Engler, who, according to the Huffinfton Post,Canada…..”Yves Engler has been described as “Canada’s version of Noam Chomsky” (Georgia Straight), “one of the most important voices on the Canadian Left today””
https://dissidentvoice.org/2017/02/assessing-media-bias/
So, this begs the question, is the media researcher for MBFC, D.Kelly able to discern right from left when giving an assessment of a source? Obviously not, given his claim that “21st Century Wire is conspiracy and fake news with an extreme right bias” …. he sees ” no evidence of impartiality or opinions from the left in any of the stories that he reads”. His use of this article as an example flys in the face of such claims.
He goes on……“Additionally, their stories are non-sourced, with no links except to their own stories, and are little more than loosely associated facts tied together broad conjecture and innuendo. When trying to research some of their claims myself I could find no corroboration from a credible source.”
Clearly , the story in question is externally sourced and not as he says…. “with no links except to their own stories”.
Right under the photo of the lion, in plain sight, it says Yves Engler, Dissident Voice. Just click on “Dissident Voice” and it links you to the whole article, not just cherry picked excerpts which D.Kelly so transparently tries to dismiss as “loosely associated facts tied together broad conjecture and innuendo”
.
I could continue here, in disputing D.Kelly’s assessment of the investigative journalist Eva Bartlett, but Eva very well speaks for herself in her entire addendum , not the isolated, small fragments of it which D.Kelly attempts to use as the basis for discrediting her.
In my opinion, D.Kelly does not have the ability or willingness to do fair-minded media bias research and present the details in a convincing manner, The owner of MBFC, Dave Van Zandt seems to be more objective, with less of his own bias interfering with his analyses.
But then again, my viewpoint is likely colored by my own bias as well. 🙂
Sorry for such a long post.
Thanks for reporting back!
It’s always nice when someone does this kind of research and reports back. Sounds like this site is having it both ways. Seems like it’s that way with a lot of news sources these days — sometimes I read something and I think, that sounds reasonable. And other times, in the same news outlet, I’ll read something where it seems utterly biased.
I liked what Van Zandt said about bias — that when information is vetted (by humans), it will almost certainly be at least a little bit biased. 100% objectivity isn’t really possible, in my view (and I’m biased!).
food for thought
Thanks for your thoughtful feedback, Lise.
Yes, I can appreciate what you said, and also Van Zandt’s breakdown, cited in his Methodology, of the various ways bias can appear ,……. i.e. Bias by Omission, Bias by Labeling, Bias by Placement, Bias by Selection of Sources, Loaded Language (Words), Confirmation Bias, etc…. with explanations and examples.
All food for thought !