Monday, June 10, 2013

Thank Heaven for Conservative Friends

No, really! I mean it!

May their idea of God bless them and their narrow, little, world view, and their generous need to share every outrageous headline they encounter, without thinking, fact-checking or, in some cases, actually reading the story attached to the headline. 

Without them, The PC would have to actually work to come up with topics for his (almost) nightly posts.

This past Friday, a "news" site posted an alarming story about the odious reach of tyrannical Obama D.O.J. and F.B.i.

*NOTE*

As you know, The Blog hates directing traffic to certain web sites. If you must see this story with your own eyes, so you know that The Blog is not making this up, you can find it here. But, a caveat before you go there. Several people have informed me that their Mcafee security software considers the NationalReport.com to be "unsafe."  (Leading to a number of possible cheap shots about a software program being smarter than some of my friends. But, this blog is no place for cheap shots.)

**A brief pause to allow some of you to wipe down your monitor and keyboard. Sorry about that!**

The Blog has accessed the site some eight times in the last 24 hours and has suffered no ill effects, but, just be warned.

*END NOTE*

To save you the trouble of going to the site, The Blog will now repost the story, in it's entirety, along with the accompanying photo, below...

"DOJ & FBI Raid News Media Offices After Releasing an Alarming Story on President Obama"
                                                   By National Report Staff
"<National Report> Within hours of publishing a scathing story on President Obama, the DOJ raided the offices of the National Report claiming the raid was lawful under the USA Patriot Act but refusing to say why the government was taking the action.
At about 12:50 this afternoon the National Report released a damning story on the Obama birth certificate scandal providing new evidence which clearly shows the document to be fraudulent. According to Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his Cold Case Posse has the evidence to prove the presidents birth certificate was computer generated using Adobe Illustrator.
Cold Case Posse lead investigator Mike Zullo, revealed for the first time that his findings have been confirmed in a 40 page report by Reed Hayes, a Certified Documents Examiner (CDE) from Hawaii. The birth certificate posted to the White House website clearly shows it was forged using cut & paste methods in several layers.
At about 2:08 pm employees at the National Report were shocked when dozens of black clad machine gun toting DOJ agents wearing black masks entered the National Report office forcing everyone to the ground while demanding they put their hands on top their heads. After securing all employees FBI agents entered and began questioning employees and seizing files and other documents.
“We did exactly as they told us,” said National Report’s publisher Allen Montgomery, who added “No one knew what was happening.” Its being reported that the offices of Montgomery and Editor-in-Chief Nigel Covington, were ransacked and boxes of files were seized and carted off by FBI agents.
Covington said, “This is a gross violation of our Constitutional rights as American citizens and as journalists. All our files relating to President Obama were seized with others including all employee personnel files.”
Montgomery said federal agents did not have a warrant and offered no explanation for the action. He added about an hour before the raid, the National Report had released a story about the mounting evidence which confirms Obama’s birth records are in fact forged. Montgomery said most employees were so shaken up by the raid he let them go home early.
More on this breaking story as it becomes available. "

Okay. Did you get all that?

HOLYFUCKINGJESUSHOWARDCHRISTONASKATEBOARD!!!!!

The fact that the six multi-national, mega-corporation owned Mainstream Media outlets have not jumped all over this story of government intimidation of journalists has to prove, once and for all that...

THE LAME-STREAM MEDIA ARE A BUNCH OF OBAMA FELLATING, LEFT-WING, LIBERAL, ELITISTS!!!!!

Right?

Well, no.

While the mainstream media has not, in the last few decades, been particularly vigilant when seeking out truth, in this case, they are not reporting the story because...

 it...

 simply...

 isn't...

 true.

(We will get back to that specific statement in a minute. But first....)

Put on your "Critical Thinking Caps" and follow along.

The story is from a non-partisan source of journalism. We know that, because it says so on it's masthead, right between photos of Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin.




The byline reads, "The National Report Staff."

(Hang on to that thought. We'll come back to it.)

The National Report
reports that hours after The National Report beat a dead horse posted a story that, at this point, is only relevant to a diminishing lunatic fringe and their leaders, Sheriff Joe and P.T. Barnum Donald Trump, the offices of The National Report were raided by the DOJ and FBI.

That sums the story up, pretty neatly, I think.

Go ahead and reread the story as many times as you like, since The PC has saved you the trouble of going back to the actual web site.

Now. Remember that "The National Report Staff" byline?

Here is the "disclaimer" that runs, immediately below the story...

"*DISCLAIMER:  The National Report is an online portal for "citizen journalists".  The views expressed by writers on this site are theirs alone and are not reflective of the fine journalistic and editorial integrity of National Report.  Advice given is NOT to be construed as professional.  If you are in need of professional help, please consult a professional.  National Report is not intended for children under the age of 18."

Got that?

It seems that The National Report has no staff. Only "citizen journalists" aka: "bloggers," and disavows any responsibility for any story posted on The National Report's site.

To borrow from The Bard, something "Stinketh to High Heaven."

Not long after the The National Report posted this story, one conservative blog, the rather unimaginatively named MrConservative.com, reposted the story.

Shortly after that, "Mr. Conservative" posted an update.

(Again, you can read it here. Or wait a second while The PC reposts the update, below...)
"UPDATE: Since publishing this report, we’ve learned that the National Report story about an FBI and DOJ raid on their offices is false.  We’re not beating ourselves up too much, though, for having reported it here.  The fact is that, with daily reports about the Obama administration’s heavy-handed approach to anyone or anything that challenges the administration, whether using the IRS to harass conservative or the criminal justice system to harass journalists, it was actually reasonable to believe that this could happen — and if that’s not a sad commentary on life in America today, we really don’t know what is.  
We’re not withdrawing this story from publication because the fact that it is false but still believable, is in and of itself, newsworthy.  So, please enjoy what turns out to have been a good hoax, but keep in mind that it speaks a great deal about today’s America, which is a place in which we are discovering that every single one of us is being electronically scrutinized."
Are you still with me?

"Mr. Conservative"
has acknowledged that the story is false, but has decided not to remove the post because it is "believable."

The Blog hates it when people stoop to Nazi analogies, but it seems appropriate, here.

"Mr. Conservative's" position is like a Nazi blog stating that "We know it isn't true that Jews control the world economy and eat babies for lunch, but we stand by the statement because it is 'believable.'"

BTW... The photo that accompanies both The National Report's story and "Mr. Conservative's" post originally accompanied a Newsday.com post about an anti-gang investigation in Long Island, way back on March 17, 2010.

And now, for the punchline...

Your old Uncle PC has been "having you on," "pulling your leg," and "yanking your chain."

The National Report is not a far right propaganda site.

It is a satire site.

The Mcafee warning, (which, I guess, is legit,) notwithstanding, their site is perfectly safe to peruse.

Just understand that not one single word on the site is, by design, true.

And, this is where it stops being funny.

Cut and paste the story's headline into Google.

I'll save you the trouble of scrolling back up... here it is, again...
"DOJ & FBI Raid News Media Offices After Releasing an Alarming Story on President Obama"
Now, look at the top 20 hits, or so...

Every right-wing propaganda site on the interwebs is sharing this story as if it were fact.

As are about a half dozen of The Blog's conservative friends.

Let us all take a moment of silence for the death of critical thinking in America.

1 comment:

  1. Me thinks the PC is getting religion, what with all the silence being invoked.
    But I digress...

    The death of critical thinking has long been suspect and in many quarters is but a poltergeist.

    Boo!

    ReplyDelete