ISE Media Network is a 24-hour news and entertainment streaming platform built with blockchain technology in response to the widespread systematic censorship of independent media by corporate media giants like Google, Apple, Youtube, Facebook, etc.
This platform was conceived by Emmy Award winning journalist and freedom activist Ben Swann. Ben has a reputation for honest and fearless journalism, accumulating hundreds of millions of views for his content through his company Truth in Media.
ISE Network will be a hub for independent media, providing channels for media outlets that have been decimated by the “big tech purge,” as well as creating new original content and providing opportunities for independent content creators to obtain funding to produce their material. All content will be permanently recorded on the ISE blockchain, making it free from censorship and deletion. Content creators and network users will be rewarded with cryptocurrency for uploading and engaging in content.
Isegoria is made of 3 major components:
ISE Live. A 24/7 streaming channel offering daily newscasts, entertainment, docudramas, video podcasts, and independent media content.
ISE Quality. A platform tailored for independent channels. Channels will provide content that is currently being purged from other platforms.
ISE Indie. Independent journalists and content creators that are not large enough to have enough ongoing content for its own dedicated channel will have access to a treasury system. Projects can be presented to the ISE community and subjected to a vote to be awarded funding from the Treasury.
One standout feature of Isegoria is a rewards system for Isegoria’s content creators and users who engage with the platform’s content. All of the content on Isegoria’s network will be permanently recorded on the ISE blockchain, which will free content from censorship and deletion.
For more information about ISE Media network, please visit Isegoria.com.
Shortly after the United States, France and the UK launched air strikes against Syria in April in response to a suspected chemical attack allegedly carried out by the Syrian government in Douma, a CNN report featuring senior correspondent Arwa Damon reporting from a refugee camp in Aleppo was published.
The report highlighted Damon’s visit with survivors of the reported chemical attack:
We were at the camp, run and funded by Turkey, just hours after US, UK and French strikes hit three suspected regime chemical weapons site in response to the regime’s latest alleged toxic strike on Douma…
The people here believe that the strikes were part of a broader political game, and had little regard for ending or easing their suffering. The intervention did little to eliminate the rest of Assad’s deadly arsenal, they point out.
It is a sentiment that has long existed among those who live in opposition-held areas, which have borne the brunt of regime bombardment over the years: that leaders who condemn the regime are hypocrites, merely feigning outrage to push forward their own agendas, and that Syrian lives have no real value to them.
In a video accompanying the report, Damon is seen sniffing the interior of a child’s backpack, declaring that “there’s definitely something that stings” while motioning toward her nose. While the reasoning for Damon sniffing a backpack was not stated in the CNN report, the video footage lent the appearance that the item in question belonged to a child refugee and had been in close proximity to the suspected chemical attack.
One particularly vocal critic of CNN’s report and Damon’s on-air activity was comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore, who mocked Damon for nonchalantly placing her face inside of a backpack possibly laced with toxic chemicals.
Damon’s behavior “shows that she’s not worried about it at all,” claimed Brigida Santos, a journalist accompanying Dore’s show. “I would not get anywhere near that backpack if I thought something was actually in it— I certainly wouldn’t stick my face in it and inhale it, if you’re talking about chemical weapons,” she added.
Dore compared Damon’s reporting to that of Robert Fisk, who also visited Douma and published ground reporting that questioned mainstream narratives regarding April’s chemical attack. In Fisk’s report, he wrote about his visit to “an underground clinic whose images of suffering allowed three of the Western world’s most powerful nations to bomb Syria last week.” Fisk wrote that he met a doctor in the clinic who confirmed the widespread video depicting afflicted victims was authentic, but claimed that “the patients, he says, were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm.”
While mainstream media reporting in recent months has expanded to cover blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, coverage is often limited to discussion of the market and regulations. CNN International recently visited New Hampshire and provided a closer look into how individuals live day-to-day using cryptocurrency, an act not often seen in the media.
Joël Valenzuela is a longtime cryptocurrency advocate and the chief editor of Dash Force News, a news service that provides current-event reports cryptocurrency and the blockchain, as well as updates and developments related to the Dash digital currency. Valenzuela accepts wages and pays for expenses solely using Dash, and allowed CNN International to accompany him in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for a day as he exemplified everyday crypto use.
Valenzuela uses Dash to pay for a plethora of costs including rent, gas, coffee and recreation; CNN International noted that all of his purchases took about the same amount of time as a typical credit card transaction.
Valenzuela told Truth In Media that he is paid Dash directly from the blockchain, and the amount is determined by the exchange rate. He also clarified that cryptocurrency is not actually “legal tender” in Portsmouth as explained in the video, but is widely accepted in the city of just over 20,000 people.
In response to CNN International’s inquiry about how cryptocurrency will survive regulations, Valenzuela remarked that a better-suited question is how regulations will survive in cryptocurrency environments, and added that the coexistence of regulations and cryptocurrencies is being sought by the community.
(DCNF) CNN’s Brooke Baldwin canceled her scheduled interview with Kyle Kashuv, a Parkland High School student and survivor of the horrific Valentine’s Day shooting.
Kashuv has separated himself from the rest of the Parkland student advocates in his strong support for the Second Amendment and alternative safety proposals beside gun control or the banning of specific types of weapons.
In a tweet Wednesday morning, Kashuv accused CNN of canceling his appearance because he linked an article that was critical of Baldwin, along with saying that he was excited to appear on her show.
Kashuv accused CNN in a subsequent tweet of using the article as an excuse to avoid having an even-sided discussion of gun control.
My friend just got a call from @CNN. They're canceling my interview because I quote RTed a Tweet where @ClayTravis called @BrookeBCNN a "fake news hypocrite" (and was quoted in the title).
But don't worry, CNN really wants to have the other side on, as long as they're complicit https://t.co/t95zexPiF8
Over the past week, CNN has been battling allegations of scripting a town hall event, spreading fake news, and exposing the identity and location of a woman during an interview. These accusations have been claimed by some as proof that the network fails to live up to its “Facts First” credo, while others view CNN as being unfairly targeted by phony accusations. The network’s most recent faux pas, described by some as harassment of a private citizen, drew particularly strong criticism from prominent media figures.
Chris Cuomo Retweeted Fake News and Defended It
Earlier this week, CNN host Chris Cuomo retweeted an article written by 20-year old Cody Davis who claimed he was “able to buy a gun in five minutes” in his headline. The article itself proved nothing of the sort; the author admitted that he was given five pages of paperwork to fill out and instead, he abruptly left- contradicting his claim that he “was able to buy” a gun. A few days later Twitter users criticized Cuomo for retweeting fake news. Rather than discuss the content of the article— particularly the detail that many of Cuomo’s detractors found most crucial, which was that the author left before filling out required paperwork for the gun purchase— Cuomo argued that he shared the article because he felt the “system should be better.”
Colton Haab Claims CNN “Scripted” His Town Hall Question
Update, February 24, 2018, 1:25pm:
A CNN source has released emails to address the Haab family’s claims of the network putting forward “scripted” material. According to Business Insider, Fox News and the Huffington Post received CNN-related email exchanges from the Haabs on Friday afternoon, and CNN later “provided Colton’s version of the emails, as well as their versions of all of the communications between the Haabs and CNN.”
Business Insider reports that CNN opted to release their communications upon the revelation that the emails received by Fox and HuffPo were missing a portion of text. CNN’s version of one particular email shows that producer Carrie Stevenson told Colton’s father, Glenn, that Colton needed to “stick to” one question that he and Stevenson “discussed on the phone that he submitted”; the version of the email reportedly provided by the Haabs to Fox and HuffPost is missing the phrase “that he submitted.”
Since Haab’s initial accusation, more details have been revealed and both Haab and CNN have doubled down on their positions, with Haab appearing on Fox News to share further context and CNN standing firm in their refutation.
Haab’s father, Glenn Haab, told the Huffington Post that his son had been informed that his prepared material was too long and was directed to cut his proposed remarks to one question. Haab’s father went on to say that his son could not properly convey one question with no context, so he chose not to attend the town hall.
According to the Daily Caller, Matt Dornic, CNN’s Vice President of Communications and Digital Partnerships, claimed that CNN “gave Haab the opportunity to expand on the idea of arming teachers, a topic which was brought up multiple times during the town hall, as opposed to delivering a prepared speech.” The Daily Caller noted that “Haab reportedly declined to reframe his remarks, and his father subsequently prevented him from taking part in the program. Despite CNN’s explanation, the network did in fact let multiple participants deliver lengthy remarks which went beyond the pale of simple questions.”
When President Trump waded into the controversy, CNN’s Drew Griffin dismissed the situation as a lie “repeated over and over again.”
Haab went on to appear on Fox News, going into further detail with Tucker Carlson and went into further detail about the incident:
So what had happened was four days ago I had gotten contacted by a lady named Carrie Stevenson from CNN. She had asked me originally to just write a speech. It was going to be at the town hall at the BB&T Center. So I agreed. I felt like it would be the right thing to do. Be able to go speak my part as well as open eyes to a few things that I thought that can make this situation a little better. From there, three days ago, so the next day after that I had gotten an email back from her and she asked for more of questions rather than a speech. Which I was totally fine with so I wrote a little less of a speech and more of questions that I wanted to ask at the town hall. The day after that it was more of just questions. She asked for just questions that I would like to ask.
So, I gave her my questions and then yesterday, at about 5:15, I made contact with her. And she had asked if I had just asked her one question. So what they had actually done was wrote out a question for me because in my interview with CNN, I had talked about arming the teachers, if they were willing to arm themselves in the school to carry on campus. And they had — she had taken that of what I had briefed on and actually wrote that question out for me. So I have that question here if you would like me to ask it for you.
“So you sent them a long, in effect essay on what you thought but they put their own words in the question and they weren’t the same as the words you had sent in? They were the producer’s words?” Carlson asked.
“Absolutely,” Haab answered. “They had taken what I had wrote and what I had briefed on and talked about and they actually wrote the question for me.”
Andrew Klein, the father of a survivor of the Stoneham Douglas shooting, told Laura Ingraham that he had been approached by a CNN producer the day after the shooting, and “the producer insinuated to me they were looking for people who were willing to espouse a certain narrative which was taking a tragedy and turning it into a policy debate and I read that as being a gun control debate.” When Ingraham pressed for clarification, Klein said “the producer said we’re looking for people who want to talk about the policy implications about what happened in terms of— she didn’t mention guns but in terms of the policy implications for preventing future mass shootings and if you know folks who want to talk about that, we’d like to speak to those people.”
At this point, CNN and Haab have yet to provide proof to fully substantiate their respective claims, but both are staunch in their convictions. CNN’s most recent rebuttal on Twitter noted that “we can prove” Haab’s statements are untrue.
The Latest: CNN Confronted a Woman at Her Home and Exposed Her Identity
CNN’s Drew Griffin tracked down and confronted a woman at her home as part of Griffin’s reporting on “unwitting” American participants in Russian interference related to the 2016 election. Griffin described the woman to viewers as an individual helping “Russian internet trolls infiltrate U.S. communities by spreading Russian made messages without knowing it.”
The woman reportedly used her Facebook page to promote purported Pro-Trump rallies, which were allegedly organized by a “front group” tracing back to a Russian organization called the Internet Research Agency. Griffin repeatedly questioned her outside of her home about her level of involvement with Russians regarding her pro-Trump Facebook group’s promotion of the rally:
In publishing the woman’s first, middle, and last name, as well as her county and state of residence, she was quickly discovered online and has reportedly been subjected to a high volume of harassment.
CNN’s report was widely rebuked by a number of public figures.
That is awful and they should not have done it. In fact the video came up in our editorial meeting and I said we are definitely not showing it. Doorknocking a random citizen not accused of any wrongdoing like that is not cool.
“There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein noted last week following the indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations. “There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.”
This is not the first time CNN has shown affinity to exposing identities of citizens; last summer, the network had reported how it identified a Reddit user who crafted a GIF depicting President Trump beating a man whose head had been replaced by a CNN logo. The network reported that while it would not disclose the user’s identity at the time because the Reddit user submitted an apology to CNN’s satisfaction, “CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.”
A CNN source has released emails to address the Haab family’s claims of the network putting forward “scripted” material. According to Business Insider, Fox News and the Huffington Post received CNN-related email exchanges from the Haabs on Friday afternoon, and CNN later “provided Colton’s version of the emails, as well as their versions of all of the communications between the Haabs and CNN.”
Business Insider reports that CNN opted to release their communications upon the revelation that the emails received by Fox and HuffPo were missing a portion of text. CNN’s version of one particular email shows that producer Carrie Stevenson told Colton’s father, Glenn, that Colton needed to “stick to” one question that he and Stevenson “discussed on the phone that he submitted”; the version of the email reportedly provided by the Haabs to Fox and HuffPost is missing the phrase “that he submitted.”
Colton Haab, a survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, told local reporters that he opted out of attending CNN’s town hall because his own proposed questions were rebuffed and set to be replaced by “scripted” questions.
A town hall was held Wednesday night at the BB&T Center by CNN, hosted by Jake Tapper and included Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Dana Loesch, and a number of Stoneman Douglas students.
WPLG-TV reported that Haab “wrote questions about school safety and suggested using veterans as security guards, but he claims CNN wanted him to ask scripted questions instead.”
“CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions, and it ended up being all scripted,” said Haab, 17, a student at Stoneman Douglas and a Junior ROTC member who reportedly shielded students during the mass shooting at the high school that left 17 dead.
“I expected to be able to ask my questions and give my opinion on my questions,” Haab also said.
CNN responded to Haab’s claim by issuing the following statement via Twitter:
There is absolutely no truth to this. CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night’s town hall, nor have we ever.
After seeing an interview with Colton Haab, we invited him to participate in our town hall along with other students and administrators from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Colton’s father withdrew his name from participation before the forum began, which we regretted but respected. We welcome Colton to join us on CNN today to discuss his views on school safety.
According to WPLG-TV, no other students have come forward with claims similar to those of Haab.
(DCNF) With fears of Russia soaring to new heights, a CNN national security analyst is employing a classic argument used by the Chinese government to support censorship, arguing that social media sites should be held accountable for the content their users post to protect national security.
“Social media firms are aiding and abetting our enemies, providing them a firing platform,” retired lieutenant general and CNN analyst Mark Hertling wrote on Twitter Monday. He called attention to a Twitter post by former CIA analyst John Sipher, who promoted an article asserting that social media sites have become tools for Russia’s information warfare campaign.
Hertling, advancing the argument that social media companies should take responsibility for the content of their users and tossing the first amendment out the window, suggested that social media sites are engaging in treasonous behavior.
.@john_sipher provides the key excerpt, below. In asymmetric warfare, words and disinformation are critical weapons…social media firms are aiding and abetting our enemies, providing them a firing platform. That could be called treasonous. https://t.co/3jqFxqie9X
Following Hertling’s argument to its logical conclusion, there are some serious problems.
China, an example of a country that decides what online content is acceptable, argues that the purpose of the Great Firewall of China, the country’s massive censorship apparatus, is to “maintain social stability and national security.” It removes posts that are deemed subversive or treasonous.
The American left strongly believes that Russian bots, disinformation, and fake news swayed the 2016 presidential election in President Donald Trump’s favor, but the intelligence community has yet to find hard evidence proving that Russian meddling in any way affected the outcome of the election. Others argue that the purpose of Russia’s activities is to sow discord.
Either way, there have been repeated calls from the left for social media sites like Facebook to censor user content.
It is worth noting that China was cracking down on “fake news” before the term was popular in the West. “All levels of the cyberspace administration must earnestly fulfill their management responsibility for internet content, strengthen supervision and investigation, severely probe and handle fake and unfactual news,” the Cyberspace Administration of China said in an official statement on the issue in July 2016.
Interestingly, China is believed to fabricate a few hundred million social media posts to promote pro-Chinese government content each year.
China has used its sweeping cybersecurity laws to censor prominent social media platforms, everything from the QQ chat service to WeChat and Weibo, Chinese versions of Twitter and Facebook, social media sites which are blocked in China because they, for the most part, are unregulated platforms for free speech.
Chinese internet companies are actually required to sign a pledge to self-regulate their online content to “carry forward the rich cultural tradition of the Chinese nation and the moral code of socialist spiritual civilization.” Five years ago, China reportedly had two million people policing the internet, and that number is believed to have grown substantially over the years.
By Thomas A. Hawk USA Today reported late Monday that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed demanding $5 million from CNN or he would not participate in the next debate during a campaign stop in Macon, Georgia.
Trump says CNN hasn’t treated him properly even though his celebrity has been responsible for increased viewership on the network. He cited CNN’s last debate in September, which brought in an audience of 23 million people.
“’CNN had 23 million people. It was the biggest show in the history of CNN,’ Trump said. And the billionaire businessman is reopening negotiations over whether he will lend his star power to the debate the network is hosting Dec. 15,” USA Today reports.
[pull_quote_center]“How about I tell CNN that I’m not gonna do the next debate?” Trump asked the crowd.
“I won’t do the debate unless they pay me $5 million, all of which money goes to the Wounded Warriors or to vets,” Trump said, following a segue into how people who are “really, really, really smart like I am,” don’t need teleprompters.
Though he said he didn’t want to point fingers at any specific pundits, he did name drop one big one:
“Guys like Karl Rove. He spends hundreds of millions of dollars on campaigns, he wins nothing. There are some people that are losers,” he said.
The purpose of these debates is supposed to give voters an opportunity to learn about the candidates and where they stand on important issues, but many of them have been far from that.
Regardless of what you think of this, Trump sees what these debates have become — ratings-driven entertainment, and he is an entertainer.
If Trump moved forward with this demand, he would likely be widely criticized for it. However, to maximize its audience, can CNN come out right now and say it wouldn’t pay it? Who would blink first?
CNN is scheduled to host the next GOP primary debate on Tuesday, December 15.
This article was republished with permission of IVN.
By Chuck Ross A CNN reporter who was recently suspended for two weeks for violating the network’s editorial guidelines showed up in a new trove of State Department emails released on Tuesday in which she appears to have coordinated social media posts with a top Hillary Clinton State Department aide during the former secretary of state’s Jan. 23, 2013 Senate testimony about the Benghazi attacks.
The emails, which were released to the website Gawker, show that Elise Labott, a foreign affairs reporter at CNN, took guidance from Clinton aide Philippe Reines by posting a tweet criticizing Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul for asking Clinton tough questions during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks.
Labott also coordinated with Reines to post a favorable quote from Clinton’s testimony, which she gave just a week before she left office.
In the Reines emails, which are the subject of a Gawker lawsuit against the State Department, Labott appears to pick up on a previous conversation she was having with Reines during the Benghazi hearing, asking him: “are you sure rand paul wasn’t at any hearings?”
Five minutes after sending that email, Labott sent Reines another message sharing what she had tweeted about Paul.
Sen Paul most critical on committee of Clinton, but a little late to the #Benghazi game.Not sure he was at many of the 30 previous briefings
ARB is a reference to the Accountability Review Board that Clinton appointed to investigate the Benghazi attacks.
The release of the emails caps a rough month for Labott. On Thursday, she posted a biased tweet decrying the House’s passage of a bill that would halt the program allowing Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the U.S. until federal agencies can ensure that they don’t pose a national security risk. CNN suspended Labott the next day for violating its editorial guidelines.
CNN adjusted the candidates’ criteria on Monday for its two-hour televised Democratic presidential debate, the first of the season, which will take place at 9 p.m. EST on October 13 at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel and casino.
The Hill is reporting that CNN has expanded the range of dates in which a candidate must meet a 1 percent minimum support requirement in 3 major national polls from 6 weeks prior to the debate to any time between August 1 to October 10 in order to include low-polling former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee. CNN has also tweaked the rules to include any qualified candidate that publicly announces his or her candidacy by the day of the debate, clearing a path for Vice President Joe Biden to participate if he decides to run.
In addition to Chafee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I- Vt.), former U.S. Senator Jim Webb, and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley have been invited to face off in the contest.
Though Vice President Biden has yet to decide whether he will enter the race, he has already received substantial levels of support in several qualified major national polls. A newly-released NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Biden in third place with 17 percent support.
Speaking on the adjustments to accommodate potential candidate Joe Biden, former Democratic National Committee communications director Mo Elleithee, who was reportedly involved in planning the debates, told Politico, “I think it’s the right thing to do. Given everything that’s going on, no one wants to be accused of trying to keep any candidate off the stage. This ensures that no one is. Can you imagine any scenario where Biden announces his candidacy and is not allowed on that stage? It would more or less invalidate the debate if he announced and wasn’t on stage.”
University of Michigan director of debate Aaron Kall told The Hill, “Having candidates that don’t have anything to lose is potentially dangerous to front-runners. It only increases the chances of them trying to do a Hail Mary [pass] or land a zinger that can really hurt the leading candidates.”
The ratings-focused mainstream media hopes that Biden will jump in the race to set up a Clinton-Biden showdown. University of Virginia Center for Politics political analyst Geoffrey Skelley said, “There’s no question the media wants Biden to run; from the drama standpoint, having Biden and Clinton go at it really raises the bar.”
Skelley added, commenting on the inclusion of lower-polling candidates, “On the campaign trail [the Democratic candidates have] been a little reticent to overly criticize [Clinton] but they might if they realize this is their one shot. Sanders actually might benefit in that sense that if he is in a position where the three lower-tier guys are attacking Clinton.”
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper has been tapped to moderate the debate with help from correspondent Dana Bash, anchor Don Lemon, and CNN en Espanol anchor Juan Carlos.
CALIFORNIA, September 18, 2015– On Wednesday, 11 Republican presidential primary candidates took their hard-earned places behind their respective podiums on stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The first post-debate poll has been released, and Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of HP, is now a front-runner for the Republican nomination.
A strong performance in the first debate on the under-card stage thrust Fiorina onto the main stage for Wednesday’s CNN debate. Many questioned whether or not she’d continue to impress, or if she would buckle under the pressure.
After the debate, those who underestimated Fiorina were silenced. According to Robert Herring, Sr., CEO of One America News Network, the One America News national post-debate poll conducted by Gravis Marketing, a non-partisan research firm, shows it’s all Fiorina coming out of the second debate.
Taken immediately after the debate, the Gravis poll shows Fiorina jumping to first place at 22 percent, tied with Donald Trump. OAN’s previous national poll, conducted on September 3-4, showed the former HP top executive in seventh place with 2.7 percent.
While 33 percent of those polled felt that former HP CEO Carly Fiorina won the debate, only 21 percent said front-runner Donald Trump won the night.
Fiorina also had the highest showing with GOP national voters having a 78 percent more favorable opinion of the candidate post-debate. The less favorable percent came in at 13 percent with 10 percent unchanged. Thirty-three percent of GOP voters polled believed that Fiorina won the debate, the highest of any GOP Candidate.
The poll sampled a random survey of 1,337 registered Republican voters across the U.S. regarding the performance and opinions of the Republicans that took place in the second Republican Primary debate. The poll has a margin of error of ± 3%. The polls were conducted using IVR technology and weighted by gender.
Although it is only the first post-debate poll, Fiornia proved to be the first Republican candidate capable of knocking Donald Trump off his perch. For now, at least.
Who do you think won the debate? Vote in our online poll HERE.
Billionaire mogul and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has proposed that CNN donate the revenue it makes from ad sales during the second GOP debate to U.S. veterans.
In a letter to CNN President Jeff Zucker, Trump noted the first GOP debate on Fox News had an audience of nearly 24 million, and as a result, CNN raised its rates for ad sales during the Sept. 16 debate by 4,000%. Trump also claimed that the “tremendous increase in viewer interest and advertising is 100% due to ‘Donald J. Trump.'”
“I believe that all profits from this broadcast should go to various VETERANS groups,” Trump wrote. “The veterans of our country, our finest people, have been treated horribly by the government and it’s ‘all talk and no action’ politicians.”
Trump, who noted that he is funding his own campaign, also wrote that he has “always felt that we have to be helping our veterans far more than we do.”
“That is why my campaign is so focused on these great people who have done so much for us,” Trump explained. “This large contribution of many millions of dollars would be a truly wonderful thing for CNN to do.”
According to The New York Times, Trump said that during his time at the New York Military Academy, a prep school where his parents enrolled him to correct poor behavior, he “always felt that I was in the military.”
Trump, who received several draft deferments during the Vietnam War and has never served in the military, also claimed that the prep school gave him “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.”
Trump also gained attention in June when he was asked about Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and he said that McCain’s prisoner-of-war status kept him from being a war hero.
“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
According to the results of CNN/ORC poll published on Thursday, Trump maintains his spot as the GOP frontrunner and has surged to 32% support.
The next GOP presidential debate, which will be hosted by CNN and is scheduled for Sept. 16, has a new set of rules that will recognize both past and recent polling numbers, and could allow more than 10 candidates on the stage. The move follows a change in polling numbers for some Republican candidates.
CNN released a statement on Tuesday, which said that although the network initially planned on using “the average of approved national polls from July 16 through September 10 to determine the makeup of the debates,” the number of national polls conducted was much lower than expected.
While in 2007 and 2011, there were around 15 approved national polls, CNN noted that by Sept. 10, there will only be five. “As a result, we now believe we should adjust the criteria to ensure the next debate best reflects the most current state of the national race,” said the network, noting that the Republican National Committee is “fully supportive” of the changes.
[pull_quote_center]In the event that any candidate is polling in the top 10 in an average of approved national polls released between August 7 and September 10, we will add those candidates to our top tier debate, even if those candidates did not poll in the top 10 in an average of approved national polls between July 16 and September 10.[/pull_quote_center]
The new rules could open up a spot for candidates such as Carly Fiorina, a GOP contender who was excluded from the first debate’s main stage and participated in a separate debate instead, but whose performance at the forum has greatly increased her polling numbers.
Fiorina’s deputy campaign manager, Sarah Isgur Flores, released a statement last week noting that after the first GOP debate on Aug. 6, Florina ranked in the top ten in every state that was polled.
“Despite being solidly in the top 10 by every measure, the political establishment is still rigging the game to keep Carly off the main debate stage next month,” Flores wrote.
Florina addressed the change in rules during an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show on Tuesday evening, and said that she is looking forward to debating with frontrunner Donald Trump.
“I think they made the right decision based on the data which clearly has shifted – in my case – dramatically, from prior to August 6 to post-August 6,” Fiorina said.
In a statement from Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, he said, “I applaud CNN for recognizing the historic nature of this debate and fully support the network’s decision to amend their criteria.”
A CNN/ORC presidential preference poll released Monday suggests that Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders could beat billionaire Donald Trump and Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker in a head-to-head 2016 general election contest.
The survey polled 1,017 adult Americans via telephone from July 22-25 and found Sanders beating Trump 58 percent to 38 percent among all Americans and 59 percent to 38 percent among registered voters. Sanders also lead Walker 48 percent to 42 percent among all Americans and 48 percent to 43 percent among registered voters. The poll found Sanders in a statistical tie with Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
Hillary Clinton fared better than Sanders in the poll and was found to be leading Bush and beating Trump and Walker by wider margins.
Another Quinnipiac University presidential preference poll of 1,644 registered voters nationwide, conducted via telephone from July 23-28, found Sanders leading Trump 45 percent to 37 percent. In that poll, Walker led Sanders 42 percent to 37 percent, and respondents chose Bush over Vermont’s senator by a margin of 5 percentage points.
The Hill’s Brent Budowsky, who cautioned that the CNN/ORC poll “may prove to be an outlier,” argued that the poll results show that Sanders is not just rising against Trump as a reaction to the media’s obsession with the billionaire reality television star, but rising against Republicans generally. “The fact that Sanders beats Walker by six to seven points [in the CNN/ORC poll], depending on whether all voters or likely voters are counted — a near-landslide margin in a general election — makes it clear that the Sanders surge is more than a surge against Donald Trump, but a move that makes him competitive with all Republican candidates… Most interesting is the fact that Sanders is running dead even with Bush, which means that this poll, at least, refutes the notion that Sanders is not electable and supports the idea, instead, that Sanders could defeat any Republican,” wrote Budowsky.
The State Department released nearly 3,000 emails from Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s first year as Secretary of State in 2009, and included in those emails were messages from CNN Analyst Paul Begala, who requested talking points on Clinton’s accomplishments for what he called a “dopey CNN report card” segment.
The New York Timesreported that “while an ostensibly nonpartisan figure” as Secretary of State, Clinton “clearly still worried about retiring her $23 million campaign debt from 2008,” judging by an email her chief of protocol, Capricia Marshall, sent to Begala in April 2009.
“Thank you so very much!!!” Marshall wrote. “We raised 500K from the email contest!! You are all amazing — the world adores you! You put a serious hole in HRC debt!”
In response, Begala, who was an advisor to former President Bill Clinton, asked for talking points on what “HRC has accomplished in the first hundred days” as Secretary.
“I gave Sec. Clinton an A+ in our dopey CNN report card last night,” Begala wrote after the segment. “So did Donna Brazile. The only two A+’s all night.”
Following the release of the email, Begala addressed it on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper on Wednesday, and he claimed that he did disclose his personal bias when he gave Clinton an “A+” and that the audience didn’t need “a congressional subpoena to know that I love Hillary Clinton.”
“The first 100 days of the Obama administration were consumed with the economic crisis,” Begala said. “Plus it’s not my beat. It seemed to me the world was doing just fine with Hillary as secretary of state, but I didn’t know the specifics. I knew I was going to be asked about them. Who am I supposed to ask? The Koch brothers?”
Referring to Begala’s comment about CNN being “dopey,” Tapper asked Begala if he felt the same way about Tapper’s segments.
“No,” Begala replied. “Let me say, I was dopey to put that in an email. I was feeling grumpy. I was on the set I think with (former presidential adviser David) Gergen, these very tall people and I’m short. So I was feeling like a dwarf. I picked the wrong dwarf. Sometimes I say things that are dopey. That’s part of the gig, I guess.”
In March, when it was revealed that Clinton had used her personal email for government business during her tenure as Secretary of State, Politico reported that Begala was among the Clinton allies “who believe the all-but-certain nominee is enough of a defined quantity in voters’ eyes that Republican attacks on her email policies cannot sway them.”
In a statement regarding Clinton’s emails, Begala said, “Voters do not give a shit. They do not even give a fart. Find me one persuadable voter who agrees with HRC on the issues but will vote against her because she has a non-archival-compliant email system and I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s window and say it smells like roses.”
A CNN live shot in Charleston, S.C. was disrupted Thursday hours after police arrested Dylann Storm Roof for the brutal killing of nine people at a predominantly African-American church.
During a hit by CNN’s John Berman on the scene in Charleston, a woman suddenly appeared and started shouting at the host, repeatedly asking the host if he was “angry.”
“There’s a lot of heartbreak to go around in this city today,” Berman started off.
“‘No, we’re mad, we’re angry,” the woman started shouting at Berman. “Tell the truth.”
“White people are terrorists,” the woman said as Berman tried to report on the scene, saying that traffic was picking up for the first time near the site of the shooting.
Her heckling of Berman subsided for a few moments, but ramped right back up again when Don Lemon appeared with Berman to talk about the tragedy.
“I’m joined now by Don Lemon who’s with me,” Berman said bringing Lemon into the fold.
“And a friend,” Lemon said with a chuckle.
The woman slowly made her way into the background between the two anchors and ultimately shouted a variant of “are you angry, Don?” at the host ten times. Lemon and Berman seemed to keep their cool, though they gave the woman a look once or twice.
“Terrorists! The president’s a puppet!” she added in her commentary. “Stop the lies.”
“Stop the lies. He’s an Uncle Tom too. President Obama’s an Uncle Tom too,” the woman said without skipping a beat. “Black folks, get off your knees and start praying.”
The duo went promptly to a commercial break and the woman was nowhere in sight when Berman came back on soon afterwards.
CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield got into hot water with Texas police organizations Saturday for saying would-be Texas cop killer James Boulware was “courageous and brave” in his attack on police headquarters.
"Courageous and brave" to shoot at police officers with an assault rifle. Get a clue and WAKE UP!https://t.co/I1hYFlfpv4
— Houston Police Officers' Union (@HPOUTX) June 13, 2015
After the outcry, CNN’s media reporter Brian Stelter announced Sunday morning that Whitfield would apologize for the gaffe on her show that day.
Her show began at 2:00 p.m. EST, but Whitfield did not apologize, never using the words “sorry” or “apologize.” Instead, the CNN anchor said she “misspoke” and doesn’t believe the would be murderer was “courageous and brave.”
In a follow-up segment on the shooting, Whitfield took 13 seconds at the end to say, “And yesterday during a segment on the Dallas police department attack I used to the words ‘courageous and brave’ when discussing the gunman. I misspoke, and in no way believe the gunman was courageous nor brave. And I’ll be right back.”
After Fox News announced its original plan to only include the top 10 Republican presidential candidates, according to the five most recent pre-debate national polls, in its August 6 prime time Republican presidential debate at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH, New Hampshire Republicans authored an open letter asking Fox News to expand its debate, expected to be the first of the 2016 presidential primary season, to include all of the announced and qualified candidates.
Meanwhile, the New Hampshire Union-Leader announced this week that it would host a forum on August 6 for the GOP candidates who fail to meet Fox News’ qualifications. National Journal notes that, shortly thereafter, Fox News changed plans and announced that it would host a 90-minute junior varsity debate in the afternoon on August 6 in addition to the prime-time debate later that evening. The second-tier debate will include all qualified candidates who fail to make the top ten but who have achieved at least 1% in national polls. It is not yet known whether the New Hampshire Union-Leader still plans to host its debate now that Fox News is inviting the same candidates to debate on the same day.
This year’s Republican presidential primary features a crowded field. According to Yahoo! Politics, candidates Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Rick Perry have already announced their campaigns, and additional campaign announcements are expected from Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and John Kasich in the near future.
The format for Fox News’ August 6 debate now mirrors that of CNN’s September 16 Republican candidate forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA, which will also include a second debate for less-popular candidates who have achieved at least 1% in national polls. CNN published the complete criteria for inclusion in its September 16 debates on its website earlier this month.
Fox News’ junior-varsity debate will take place on August 6 at 1:00 PM EST at Quicken Loans Arena and will feature Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum as hosts. The network’s prime time debate will happen on the same day and in the same location at 9:00 PM EST, with anchors Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, and Megyn Kelly hosting.
In light of the fact that, according to Ballot Access News, the Republican National Committee decided not to establish rules for inclusion in the 2016 GOP presidential primary debates, the networks hosting the debates will each set their own criteria for candidates. The Washington Post is reporting that Fox News and CNN have announced the qualifications for their first debates. Considering the fact that there are 16 or more Republican candidates flirting with a bid at the White House, news networks have been struggling to come up with a way to fit all of the top contenders on one stage.
Fox News announced that it will include the top 10 candidates based on their averages in the five most recent national polls, calculated at 5 PM EST on August 4, leading up to its first debate on August 6 in Cleveland. The debate will be hosted by Megyn Kelly, Brett Baier, and Chris Wallace and will be co-presented by Facebook. Those candidates that fail to make the top 10 will be given airtime on Fox News on August 6.
The Washington Post‘s Matea Gold gave an example as to what Fox News’ debate field might look like if the debate were held today based on assumed candidates’ recent polling. “The top 10 contenders in the five most recent national polls are former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, real estate tycoon Donald Trump and former Texas governor Rick Perry, according to a Washington Post analysis. Former U.S. senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are a fraction of a point behind Perry,” wrote Gold.
Gold also pointed out some candidates who might not make the cut according to Fox News’ criteria. “Lagging behind those 12 are Sen. Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina and former New York governor George Pataki,” she wrote.
CNN, on the other hand, has announced that it will include two debate rounds, a top tier round featuring the top 10 candidates in recent public polls, followed by a junior varsity round of all of the other candidates who have achieved a least 1% in a national poll. CNN‘s first debate, the second of the season, will take place on September 16 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA. Hugh Hewitt and Jake Tapper are set to host the event. CNN will also require all candidates included in the debates to show that they have at least one paid campaign staffer in two of the four earliest voting states.
To be considered for inclusion in either debate, a candidate must have announced and properly filed his or her candidacy.
“The media is protecting the Obama Administration and the CIA brass in regard to the integrity of their account” says investigative journalist Gareth Porter while taking about a story that is creating a lot of controversy. That story by journalist Seymour Hersh is scathing report which aims to debunk the entire official story of how the Obama Administration killed Osama bin Laden.
Remember this famous image from the White House Situation Room as high level members of the Obama Administration watched in “real time” the killing of bin Laden? Of course, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta later admitted that the feed being watched here wasn’t actually a live feed at all. That there were no live images actually fed from inside the bin Laden compound.
Hillary Clinton later went on record saying that she wasn’t gasping in the photo, rather she was holding back a cough.
Now, the Hersh report, provided by anonymous sources claims that more than just that photo was embellished. The main takeaways from Hersh’s story which ran in the London Review of Books:
1. US officials say they found bin Laden by tracking his trusted courier, Hersh says they discovered his whereabouts from a former Pakistani intelligence officer who wanted the $25 million reward the US was offering.
2. The U.S. government claimed bin Laden was hiding out, but Hersh says the Pakistani intelligence agency had actually been holding him captive since 2006 to use him as leverage against Taliban and Al Qaeda activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
3. While the White House has said it would have taken bin Laden alive if it could have and that he was killed in a firefight, Hersh says that wasn’t the case. “There was no firefight as they moved into the compound; the ISI guards had gone,”
4. As for the claim that bin Laden was secretly buried at sea, Hersh claims “The remains, including his head, which had only a few bullet holes in it, were thrown into a body bag and, during a helicopter flight some body parts were tossed out over the Hindu Kush mountains.”
To see RT America’s full interview with Seymour Hersh, watch here:
Of course the biggest problem with Hersh’s story is that there is no smoking gun. No direct evidence that his claims provided by several sources are true. As for the White House, they are as you would expect calling the report “baseless and inaccurate”.
White House national security spokesman Ned Price said that Hersh’s report contained “too many inaccuracies and baseless assertions” to fact check. It is worth mentioning that he doesn’t bother to fact check ANY of them.
VOX’S Max Fisher critiques Hersh’s report, commenting on the “tissue-thin sourcing, its leaps of logic, and its internal contradictions.”
CNN’S Peter Bergen reports on how the account is easily contradicted by “a multitude of eyewitness accounts, inconvenient facts and simple common sense.”
Jack Shafer also criticizes Hersh’s piece, noting that it offers “little of substance” for those who may wish to corroborate the claims.
Of course, for media to attack a reporter like Hersh is nothing new and that may be the biggest problem. In contrast to these criticisms, The Intercept reports that “R.J. Hillhouse, a former professor, Fulbright fellow and novelist whose writing on intelligence and military outsourcing has appeared in the Washington Post and New York Times, made the same main assertions in 2011 about the death of Osama bin Laden as Seymour Hersh’s new story in the London Review of Books — apparently based on different sources than those used by Hersh.”
But as investigative journalist Gareth Porter tells Ben Swann that he believes the Hersh story is correct on some points but incorrect on others. Porter has himself investigated the killing of bin Laden says that while some of the details of the Hersh report may be incorrect “the essential point that (the Obama Administration) told a massive lie about how they arrived at the Abbottabad compound and focused on it, that is absolutely true that that was a lie” says Porter.
You can view the full interview with Gareth Porter here:
