“The stock of the world’s largest corporations are owned by the same institutional investors. They all own each other. This means that ‘competing’ brands, like Coke and Pepsi aren’t really competitors, at all, since their stock is owned by exactly the same investment companies, investment funds, insurance companies, banks and in some cases, governments.

The smaller investors are owned by larger investors. Those are owned by even bigger investors. The visible top of this pyramid shows only two companies whose names we have often seen …They are Vanguard and BlackRock.

The power of these two companies is beyond your imagination. Not only do they own a large part of the stocks of nearly all big companies but also the stocks of the investors in those companies. This gives them a complete monopoly.

A Bloomberg report states that both these companies in the year 2028, together will have investments in the amount of 20 trillion dollars. That means that they will own almost everything.’”

Who Are the Vanguard?

The word “vanguard” means “the foremost position in an army or fleet advancing into battle,” and/or “the leading position in a trend or movement.” Both are fitting descriptions of this global behemoth, owned by globalists pushing for a Great Reset, the core of which is the transfer of wealth and ownership from the hands of the many into the hands of the very few.

Interestingly, Vanguard is the largest shareholder of BlackRock, as of March 2021. Vanguard itself, on the other hand, has a “unique” corporate structure that makes its ownership more difficult to discern. It’s owned by its various funds, which in turn are owned by the shareholders. Aside from these shareholders, it has no outside investors and is not publicly traded. As reported in the featured video:

“The elite who own Vanguard apparently do not like being in the spotlight but of course they cannot hide from who is willing to dig. Reports from Oxfam and Bloomberg say that 1% of the world, together owns more money than the other 99%. Even worse, Oxfam says that 82% of all earned money in 2017 went to this 1%.

In other words, these two investment companies, Vanguard and BlackRock hold a monopoly in all industries in the world and they, in turn are owned by the richest families in the world, some of whom are royalty and who have been very rich since before the Industrial Revolution.”

While it would take time to sift through all of Vanguard’s funds to identify individual shareholders, and therefore owners of Vanguard, a quick look-see suggests Rothschild Investment Corp. and the Edmond De Rothschild Holding are two such stakeholders. Keep the name Rothschild in your mind as you read on, as it will feature again later.

The video above also identies the Italian Orsini family, the American Bush family, the British Royal family, the du Pont family, the Morgans, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, as Vanguard owners.

BlackRock/Vanguard Own Big Pharma

According to Simply Wall Street, in February 2020, BlackRock and Vanguard were the two largest shareholders of GlaxoSmithKline, at 7% and 3.5% of shares respectively. At Pfizer, the ownership is reversed, with Vanguard being the top investor and BlackRock the second-largest stockholder.

Keep in mind that stock ownership ratios can change at any time, since companies buy and sell on a regular basis, so don’t get hung up on percentages. The bottom line is that BlackRock and Vanguard, individually and combined, own enough shares at any given time that we can say they easily control both Big Pharma and the centralized legacy media — and then some.

Why does this matter? It matters because drug companies are driving COVID-19 responses — all of which, so far, have endangered rather than optimized public health — and mainstream media have been willing accomplices in spreading their propaganda, a false ocial narrative that has, and still is, leading the public astray and fosters fear based on lies.

To have any chance of righting this situation, we must understand who the central players are, where the harmful dictates are coming from, and why these false narratives are being created in the first place.

As noted in Global Justice Now’s December 2020 report “The Horrible History of Big Pharma,” we simply cannot allow drug companies — “which have a long track record of prioritizing corporate profit over people’s health” — to continue to dictate COVID-19 responses.

In it, they review the shameful history of the top seven drug companies in the world that are now developing and manufacturing drugs and gene-based “vaccines” against COVID-19, while mainstream media have helped suppress information about readily available older drugs that have been shown to have a high degree of efficacy against the infection.

BlackRock/Vanguard Own the Media

When it comes to The New York Times, as of May 2021, BlackRock is the second-largest stockholder at 7.43% of total shares, just after The Vanguard Group, which owns the largest portion (8.11%).

In addition to The New York Times, Vanguard and BlackRock are also the top two owners of Time Warner, Comcast, Disney, News Corp, four of the six media companies that control more than 90% of the U.S. media landscape.

Needless to say, if you have control of this many news outlets, you can control entire nations by way of carefully orchestrated and organized centralized propaganda disguised as journalism.

If your head is spinning already, you’re not alone.  It’s difficult to describe circular and tightly interwoven relationships in a linear fashion.  The world of corporate ownership is labyrinthine, where everyone seems to own everyone to some degree.

However, the key take-home message is that two companies stand out head and neck above all others, and that’s BlackRock and Vanguard.  Together, they form a hidden monopoly on global asset holdings, and through their influence over our centralized media, they have the power to manipulate and control a great deal of the world’s economy and events, and how the world views it all.

Considering BlackRock in 2018 announced that it has “social expectations” from the companies it invests in, its potential role as a central hub in the Great Reset and the “build back better” plan cannot be overlooked.

Add to this information showing it “undermines competition through owning shares in competing companies” and “blurs boundaries between private capital and government affairs by working closely with regulators,” and one would be hard-pressed to not see how BlackRock/Vanguard and their globalist owners might be able to facilitate the Great Reset and the so-called “green” revolution, both of which are part of the same wealth-theft scheme.

(Culled from The Indian’s Waking Times)

Source: https://americanfaith.com/the-same-shady-people-own-big-pharma-and-the-media/

The post The Same Shady People Own Big Pharma and the Media first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

We’ve just returned from a wonderful and uplifting Feast of Tabernacles.  Some came down with the virus at our Panama City Beach location. Many have sought out treatments early, not waiting to be hospitalized and added to the statistics the media doles out with such drama.  Now we know dozens who have suffered only the mildest of ailments before returning to normality, and for that we’re very grateful.  Others have been less fortunate.

It came to my attention during the Feast of Tabernacles that some church of God groups never go near world events.  That would be involvement in “this world’s politics.”  But reading some of the scriptures my Dad did very successfully in public, “this world’s politics” has delved into areas of personal decision where it has no business.  Every big brand name, perhaps due to cooperation with powers they need to oblige, is on board with whatever the agencies put out.

We never expected that it would be the CDC that would curtail freedoms.  If the entities that the masses employ refused involvement it wouldn’t be much of an issue.  Unfortunately ALL the big names are on board with guidelines issued from on high, and good luck trying to bypass the red tape.

Some places are worse than the United States, even places like California and New York.  The authorities don’t take kindly to backtalk.  The social media giants are banning all discussion that disputes the universal propaganda.  By all means, make your own decisions.  But don’t let the media, the corporations or the unaccountable agencies bully you into anything.  There’s discussion of the whole mess in the monthly letter, arriving shortly.

Many of us are not confident that the election was on the up and up.  The media would lose its collective mind if they were forced to admit the truth.  They want us divided, apparently.  They pretend that those who got vaccinated are furious at those who didn’t.  They want shame and punishment administered to anybody still arguing.  The media is through trying to convince us of anything.  They think the time has come for firings and refusal of service to those putting up any resistance.

In Australia they’re breaking heads, gently of course.  Firing upon crowds with rubber bullets has become acceptable in Sydney and Melbourne.  The lock-downs are in force, and the division is in the streets.  Doubtful the mainstream news will show any of this, but it’s happening.

Socialism is being foisted upon a naïve population here in the United States.  The government is paying people to stay home.  So much so that help wanted signs are everywhere you go.  Even fast food has become slow, with signs about the labor shortage.

Meanwhile the scenes at our southern border are too disgusting to view.  They sent out a spokesman to lead us to believe that the latest influx was returned to Haiti.  But he wasn’t telling the whole truth.  Many have been transported to American cities and towns, as if we didn’t have enough trouble.  There are reports of some eighty thousand, from South America and all over the world, walking toward the southern border.

Not since Jimmy Carter has America been so humiliated on the world scene.  For some reason we just gave all of Afghanistan to the terrorists.  So we can expect for that ugly sect to bomb and destroy targets in the Western world.  We’d hate to know what’s actually transpiring in Afghanistan in the absence of any civilized authority.  We couldn’t sleep if we knew.

Four American generals have gone on the record, under oath, and thrown the pretender under the bus.  All said they recommended leaving 2500 troops to manage the withdrawal, which the world now knows turned into deadly chaos.  The pretender still has that confused look on his face.  He said he never heard anything like that.  This doesn’t happen.  The Pentagon doesn’t dispute the President, unless of course he’s Donald Trump.  But now it’s their fall guy.  It’s all his fault, they’ll claim.  His reputation isn’t exactly squeaky clean, and now it seems that he’ll be blamed for every debacle in progress.  It suits his handlers fine.  The guilt won’t live forever.

It looks as though the governing forces are going for broke against our best interests, scolding us all the while.  It’s unclear they could have done more damage if they were trying, and some of us think they were.  American citizens are being punished, chased around and cursed while our borders are wide open and the third world is pouring in.  The people being placed within our midst are, in many cases, totally unfamiliar with our polite society.  Some are antagonistic toward us as a people, and resent our prosperity.  Others are just as mad as we are about the deadly mistakes made in our name.

You never know if things are going straight downhill, or if there will be another revival of the American spirit.  Will all the Western nations give up freedom and wait for instructions?  Not all of us!  God gave us FREEDOM, and chances are we won’t relinquish it willingly.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 1 October 2021 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Greetings from Tyler,

Our worst fears are playing out in real-time.  There are a lot of things we don’t know yet.  Who do we trust?  We’ve seen corruption in the media, corruption in Federal agencies, and now there is apparent corruption in the electoral system.  So we’re waiting with bated breath to see what the media reports?  When have they shown any honesty over recent years? They’re behind the idiocy we’ve had to endure for the past four years.  The “dossier” was a fraud, and had to be proven so at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, but there is still no admission from the mainstream media.  They’re still wearing their haughty faces, sneering at the very suggestion that ANYONE still loves America as founded.

There’s one thing you can take to the bank.  Regardless of how the contested Presidential election finally turns out, there will be many, perhaps half of the country, who will not accept the result no matter which way it ends up.

If there’s any silver lining to this incredible mess, it is that the communist’s plans to upend the nation with a bunch of destructive Green New Deal foolishness will not succeed based on House and Senate results, should they turn out to be accurate.  Worst case is we’ll be back to defense, praying that their plans to return the United States to a path of “globalism,”  replete with income redistribution and environmentalist radicalism will never come to fruition.

Should fraud be proven, maybe things will take another direction.  But it seems that everyone is waiting on a demonstrably corrupt media to tell us what the deal is.  That’s a problem.

Sorry to beat this to a pulp, but all of this is brought to you courtesy of COVID-19.  It was used as justification for the “mail-in election.”  The media is going to keep panic alive a bit longer, if for no other reason than to cover their tracks.  They’re reporting new records TODAY, and of course hyping their fraudulent “death count.”  Maybe we’d be happier if we had some faith in their reporting.  But they’ve made that impossible, awkwardly pretending to believe their own lies on national television.

We know beyond any doubt that the experts’ predictions and polls were pure fiction.  Are we to believe those had no effect on the outcome?  We’ve watched the mainstream liars all but tear up over “attempts to subvert our democracy,” when THEY were in fact the worst offenders.  They’ve led the American public down one rabbit hole after another, trying to make us all believe things that were not true.  It’s been a consistent form of brainwashing, practiced by the mainstream media organizations relentlessly.  Now we’re being asked to believe it worked.

We can be thankful that we live in a beautiful and still somewhat free nation.  As wrapped up in our national survival and prosperity as we may be, we at least have the unique knowledge that our greatest hope lies in being citizens of God’s Kingdom.  May we all remember what true HOPE is all about.  And if it be possible, for the sake of our progeny, that the United States should survive in the meantime.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 6 November 2020 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The election that determines the long-term state of the world is upon us, and the next four days may seem like an eternity.  That’s assuming we know something concrete by Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.  If some of these states get their way, the results may take much longer.  That would mean more uncertainty and more misery.

It would seem the mainstream media is trying to discourage people from lining up in person.  Every single day is a “new record” for the designer disease.   It’s designed to spread fear the likes of which we didn’t know was possible.  For all these years the mainstream promoted “No Fear,” now their promoting fear among the population as never before.  Fear of death.

They weren’t afraid of breaking God’s mandates.  They were PROUD to flaunt their indiscretions, and they’ve made it dangerous and all but illegal to utter anything in the way of criticism, especially if it’s funny.  You better not make fun of communists, socialists, snowflakes or media personalities, especially homosexuals, or you’ll probably end up on a list they’re keeping for later.  Some of the well-known analysts (don’t dare mispronounce it) are publicly looking forward to a time when they can track down their critics and rid the society they want to build of whoever fails to fall in line.

This week we watched in horror as Philadelphia underwent the wrath of the flash-mobs.  But it wasn’t really wrath.  The police shot a mental case who was threatening them with a knife.  The media said he was unarmed, contrary to the video which anybody can see.  But it didn’t matter.  It was another opportunity to raid the big-box stores while the police stood in a parking lot a couple of blocks away.  They said they didn’t have the manpower to intervene, so it continued for hour after hour, store after store.

From what we can tell, the rioters and looters are poised to go nuts in the aftermath of the election, no matter which way it goes.  Walmart is removing all guns and ammo from its stores in expectation of mob action.  Nobody dares have armed security.  Why, somebody might get hurt, and then the mainstream media would make sure that enough anger was generated against anyone standing up to the mob to ruin the rest of their lives.  Nobody wants that.

We’re about to find out whether God is inclined to give America another chance, or whether He’s decided to wash his hands of our sin-sick society.  We can follow the twists and turns of the media’s treatment of the race, or we can tune it out until a winner is determined.  Maybe we’ll have some idea as to what we’re facing by this time next week.  Let’s hope and pray that there are no large-scale shenanigans, and nothing delays the outcome.  Freedom hangs in the balance.

There is evidence that the “organizers” of the “protests” are planning big events, no matter which way things turn out.  May law and order survive the election!  We don’t want to see America’s cities looted and burnt, not one more time.  But that’s what they’re planning.  Talk about income redistribution!  There’s a story today that one of the looters, having loaded his car with stolen goods, had his car stolen!  So naturally he called police!  It seems even the criminals sometimes have use for the police.  We hope you all have a great Sabbath, and pray we can have another next week.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 30 October 2020 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It will come as a surprise to few, but media polarization has increased in the past half-decade and, a new Pew Research report asserts, appears to have been driven by Republican’s increasing distrust of the media. Pew will track that divide as the nation ultimately comes together at the polls to pick then next President and a slate of elected officials nationwide.

Of the 30 news sources* cited in the survey, “U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided,” none were trusted by more than half of the respondents.

That is according to a survey of 12,043 U.S. adults, all members of Pew’s American Trends online panel, conducted in October and November of 2019. They were asked which news outlets they relied on and trusted for news about politics and the upcoming 2020 election.

Certainly, the current head of the Republican party, President Donald Trump, has done his part in fomenting that distrust, regularly branding the mainstream media as political enemies and fake news.

Republicans said they distrusted 20 of the 30 sources cited, with only seven of those news sources them generating more trust than distrust led by Fox News, with 65% saying they trust that outlet. That outlet “towers above all others” among Republicans as a go-to source for political news, Pew said.

CNN was the most trusted by Democrats, with 67% saying that was the case.

A big difference is that while no other news sources come close to rivaling Fox among Republicans, a number of sources besides CNN are highly trusted and frequently used by Democrats. For example, two-thirds of liberal Democrats trust the New York Times, while just 10% of conservative Republicans do.

Between the 2014 study and this latest one, Republicans’ distrust increased for 14 of the 20 sources that were the same in both years, including distrust of CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times (all particular targets of the President’s animus).

The survey found that Republicans and Republican-leaning independents view many mainstream media outlets as untrustworthy, the same outlets Democrats and leaners mostly see as credible.

Compared to a similar study in 2014, Republicans are even more alienated from most of the “more established” sources, while Democrats remain confident in them, and in some cases even more confident than before.

One big takeaway is that just because people use a news source does not mean they necessarily trust it. While 24% of Republicans said they got news from CNN “in the past week,” some four-in-ten who did say they distrusted CNN. Similarly, of the 23% of Democrats who got political news from Fox nearly three-in-ten (27%) said they distrusted it.

The survey also marks the launch of a Pew Research Center Election News Pathways initiative that will extend through the 2020 election and explore how American’s news habits and attitudes affect their perception of that election.

There will be five more surveys conducted as part of the initiative, all drawn from Pew’s American Trends Panel. 

Pew will make that raw data available online for independent analysis via an online tool, API and data set, updated approximately every other month. It will also issue weekly (Wednesdays at 10 a.m.) email alerts with analysis that news outlets can use in their reporting on the election. Pew will also hold workshops for journalists interested in learning more about the initiative.

* The 30 outlets polled were: ABC News, BBC, Breitbart, Business Insider, BuzzFeed, CBS News, CNN, Daily Caller, Fox News, HuffPost, MSNBC, NBC News, Newsweek, New York Post, NPR, PBS, Politico, Rush Limbaugh Show (radio), Sean Hannity Show (radio), The Guardian, The Hill, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time, Univision, USA Today, Vice, Vox, Washington Examiner.

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The post Pew: Political Divide is Also News Trust Divide first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The vast majority of Americans have come to expect biased coverage from the so-called “mainstream media,” and what’s more, they have come to expect that coverage will be designed to advance the Democrats’ Left-wing agenda.

That’s according to some of the most recent polling data available. 

But additional evidence also supports the contention that what the media tends to cover aren’t subjects that are of vital interest or importance to most Americans and that the media covers ‘narratives’ it helps create, failing — intentionally — to give equal weight to similar stories.

The most recent example involves how American journalists initially covered the terrorist attack in New Zealand. Immediately after news of the attack first broke, the Democrat-aligned media filled their airwaves and bandwidth with far-Left pundits and politicians, as well as their own hosts and reporters, who were all quick to blame POTUS Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim “rhetoric.”

In the days that followed, the same Left-wing media outlets hammered on the narrative that 28-year-old alleged attacker Brenton Tarrant is a “white nationalist” and “right-wing extremist” who hates Muslims — as though only white, right-wing extremists are behaving as terrorists these days and the only people they are murdering are people of Islamic faith.

The fact is, however, that by far, the bulk of terrorist attacks this year — and in recent years — have been committed by Muslim extremists, and often against followers of other faiths. But our media doesn’t often report those and when they do, reports are quick, superficial, and fact-based. No narratives, no outraged guest analysts, and no lecturing, finger-wagging hosts.

As reported by Natural News: 

On January 27, Muslim extremists bombed a Roman Catholic cathedral on the Philippine island of Jolo, killing some 20 people and injuring dozens of others. But you probably didn’t hear about this horrific religious massacre because the perpetrators were violent Islamic terrorists that targeted Christians, which means the Leftist media pretty much completely ignored it.

In all, “there have been 453 Islamic terror attacks in 31 different countries so far this year – and these are just the ones that have been reported,” Natural News continued. “In total, just in 2019 so far, there have been a shocking 1,956 people murdered by Islamic terrorists, and another 2,019 injured, according to TheReligionOfPeace.com.”

While the vast majority of Americans are aware of what happened last week in New Zealand, probably an equal number are completely in the dark about the fact that there have been more than 450 terrorist attacks this year so far committed by Islamic extremists, including many against Christian believers. That’s because the American legacy media won’t report on those stories; to do so would conflict with their carefully crafted narrative that Muslims are victims and most often die at the hands of white European/American nationalists.

Naturally, if these attacks were reported with the same breathlessness, vigor, and depth, Americans would have a much different opinion of radical Islam and would understand it poses a far more serious threat than they have currently been led to believe.

According to The National Sentinel, it appears as though Muslims have become the American Left’s “new protected class.”

The site quoted CAIR research director Dr. Abbas Barzegar, who launched an attack against the First Amendment during a press conference after the New Zealand shootings, implying that there should be no criticism of Muslims allowed. 

He said social and traditional media do “not allow these people to exploit freedom of speech.”

And no one from the media pushed back.

When our country was founded, patriots bequeathed us a free and independent press they believed was essential to protect our liberties, primarily by holding the powerful accountable. By allowing themselves to become agents of the powerful, today’s establishment media have violated the founders’ intent.

A version of this story first appeared at NewsTarget.

Source: https://thenationalsentinel.com/2019/03/21/astonishing-bias-452-islamic-terror-attacks-in-31-countries-just-this-year-so-far-and-zero-coverage-from-the-media/

The post Astonishing bias: 452 Islamic terror attacks in 31 countries just THIS YEAR (so far) and zero coverage from the media first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

         If you planned to buy some cheap sporting goods gear or anything else made in China, you might want to hurry to the store.   Trade talks appear to have reached an impasse, reflected by a gyrating stock market this week. It is well known and widely reported that America suffers a $500 billion annual trade deficit with China.   An agreement was all worked out and signed by negotiators for the Chinese, until it was pulled back and rejected by their leadership.   One pundit suggested that those responsible for concluding the arrangement on China’s behalf have been recalled and may well suffer prison or death for their efforts.

President Trump seems to be the exception to widespread panic roiling the pundits and markets. He seems perfectly at ease with the tariffs even threatening to expand them to items currently not covered, such as electronics, and all will be well in the end.   The President believes that China will run out of potential retaliations and be forced to play ball, as the risk to their economy is far greater than any exposure faced by the United States. Trump publicly threatened to do exactly this eight years ago during a brief flirtation with a presidential run. Now he’s making good on that threat.

As North Korea is finding out, President Trump plays hardball.   You probably heard of the North Korean freighter seized in Indonesia carrying coal destined for China in contravention of sanctions recognized and approved by the UN. At least they won’t be using that freighter, their largest,   for clandestine shipments anymore.   Chairman Kim is receiving attention for having fired a series of short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan.   The President’s critics seem thrilled that Kim is “standing up to Trump,” flexing his muscles or whatever. Foreign policy experts are not alarmed.   The short-range tests do not fall into a category of concern over North Korean nuclear capabilities.

Central American aliens continue to flood the Southern U. S. border in   record numbers. Much to our dismay, recent weeks have seen reports of hundreds and thousands being released, destitute, into American society. A court ruling this week indicates that Central Americans can be released back into Mexico to await their asylum cases.   We can only hope that this works out and curtails the wholesale release of people who disappear into the population where many will be supported courtesy of the U. S. taxpayer. Considering the vast scale of deficit spending, it may well be our children’s children who end up carrying the backbreaking debt that’s being run up for the support and care of foreigners in our midst.   If Americans were actually having to pony up the cost of illegal immigration in real time, it might be in a completely different situation.   But the cost is simply going on the tab of U. S. debt.

By now you know that an American carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf. Israeli intelligence got wind of something, maybe even military action, that Iran was planning against American allies or interests in the region.   Time has also run out for nations continuing to buy oil from Iran.   Those nations include China, which buys about half of Iran’s oil, and India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey.   The threat is that any of these nations continuing to buy Iranian oil will be prevented from access to U. S. markets.

Oil revenue is estimated to account for some 40% of Iranian government revenue.   Iran has threatened to ramp up its nuclear program in retaliation, but there’s another hitch. The European Union and its members have continued to uphold the terms of the nuclear deal that President Trump rejected on behalf of the United States.   Iran has been warned by the Europeans that ramping up their nuclear program would violate what’s left of the agreement.   No wonder Iran is considering radical measures, and no wonder the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln is headed for the Gulf.

There are enough high-level unresolved circumstances around the world to make your head spin. Israel has recently absorbed (or shot down) some 700 rockets killing civilians and destroying property.   They responded with 350 air-strikes in Gaza.   Hopefully they did some good, but the situation is not over and probably never will be.

Britain can’t seem to break free of the EU, yet.   When it finally does, the EU will be in more trouble than it’s in already. The culture has already been radically transformed due to a massive Muslim presence, and its increasing demands. A new mosque, the biggest yet, is about to open in France. There apparently aren’t enough. France already boasts 2,300 mosques with another couple of hundred planned.   There are Muslim incidents of all kinds every day across Europe and in the UK, and nearly all go unreported in our mainstream news.   People are being arrested and charged for perceived insults to the culture enrichers, even just repeating their statements or linking terrorist’s videos for the sake of honest debate.

There are those who seek to rule over us that would like to see the same thing happening right here in the U. S. Maybe you saw that it was an anti-Israel imam who delivered the opening prayer this morning on the floor of the House of Representatives.   We’ve got hideous creatures in headgear lecturing us nearly every day from the Islamic point of view. And they’re elected national “representatives,” courtesy of Obama’s attempted transformation.

We’ve arrived at a time when most all mass media and their advertisers treat the tenets of socialism as conventional wisdom.   Either you agree with their sentiments, or you’re completely out of step with society. The social media giants are busy banning people and organizations that run contrary to conventional dogma, and it’s out of control.   You think the Russians swayed an election?   Look at what Facebook, Twitter, Google and Instagram are doing to silence voices that conflict with socialist doctrines, Obama, Hillary or the Deep State!

The President couldn’t convey any more confidence or calm reassurance than he displays, even in the middle of the whirlwind created by the mainstream media.   The United States is truly the world’s last hope.   If freedom and prosperity are ever lost in the United States, the world will devolve into poverty and a one world government full of bans and mandates, just as the pope hopes. As troubled as they are, these may truly be “the good ole days.”   God promises protection for those that faithfully keep His Laws.   Have a great Sabbath,

Mark

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 10 May 2019 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

For instance, the Associated Press continually reports the news that President Trump’s approval ratings are low. They take skewed polls and try to push those who support Trump into believing they are extremists and out of the norm. What the AP and other MSM do minimal reporting on is what Trump is actually accomplishing. Trump has done tremendous things for the VA, has opened pipelines, has helped coal companies and workers, is pushing for vocational training, is reducing regulations as fast as he can and issuing few new ones.

Consumer confidence and business confidence has risen substantially since Trump took office. The public supports smaller government and lower taxes. The public does not support sanctuary cities and states. Polls have shown that the public supports the RAISE immigration Act just like Trump. Polls support Trump on keeping the statues. Trump has done great work reducing illegal immigration and going after gangs. Polls show overwhelmingly that the public supports photo ID’s for voting.

Trump is trying as hard as he can to fix the disastrous cascading failure of ObamaCare and is working to fix the complicated tax code and to lower rates. The problem is Congress, where Democrats in lockstep and some Republicans are doing what they can to obstruct Trump and protect the power they have amassed.

Obama left a disastrous ObamaCare, massive new regulations, never went through Congress on immigration, rarely passed a budget, and left disasters in Syria, The Middle East, North Korea and other places for Trump to attempt to fix.

The media continually says Trump lies about voter fraud, but recent reports from Chicago have shown more votes than actual voters. Why won’t WP, NYT or AP do an investigative report of this obvious fraud? Don’t they want the public to know?

Obama and the Democrats rarely passed a budget, ran up debt by $10 trillion, and instead of Congress attempting to work with Trump go from one vacation to the next saying Trump doesn’t know what he is doing. He doesn’t know that the goal is to not do much while pretending that they do.

Obama and the Democrats actually shut down government over ObamaCare funding and threatened to shut down government if Planned Parenthood didn’t get $500 Million. Of course the media repeated the Democrat talking points that Republicans were at fault.

Emanuel Macron’s approval rating has dropped from 66% to just 36% in just four months despite massive adoration from American and European media, while according to Rasmussen Trump’s has held in the 40’s.

I can’t understand why the American media aren’t reporting this loudly and why his ratings would drop so much since he is a big supporter of the Paris Climate accord.

It looks like Justin Trudeau and the Canadians are going to have to get tougher on immigrants and refugees with the novel concept of enforcing the law and the borders. I wonder why this isn’t widely reported?

Somehow, they will turn away Haitians in the same way Obama turned away Cubans. I wonder why Obama and Trudeau have never been called racists and xenophobes the way Trump has for wanting to enforce the border.

President Obama’s poll ratings stayed high throughout his term, despite Democrats continually losing seats nationwide. No matter how many Republicans won, the polling organizations always skewed their sample with a significant over-sampling of Democrats. That way they get the results they want. What would it take for polling entities to sample an even number of Republicans and Democrats?

I would love for some AP reporter or any reporter to list out Obama’s successful and popular domestic and foreign policies, especially ones that he passed through Congress. I can think of few, so why was he popular?

On a side note: As an Illinois resident, I am so proud to have a pretend-Republican governor who believes being a sanctuary state is the way to go. As Illinois chases away taxpayers and businesses with higher taxes, he welcomes in more illegal immigrants. That will obviously help Illinois. Our politicians are so brilliant in Illinois that we have a 16% maximum estate tax while many states have zero. It seems to be above the comprehension of Madigan and others to understand why the wealthy move away or won’t come to spend and invest their money here. It is such a tough concept to understand.

Does Rauner think Madigan, Emanuel, other Democrats and reporters will now be more receptive to Rauner and will support him in the next election, because he welcomes people willing to break our immigration laws?

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/08/media_and_the_politics_of_misdirection.html

The post Media and the Politics of Misdirection first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Analyzing the media coverage of Judge Brett Kavanaugh first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“Our leading media” are characterized by “indefensibly corrupt manipulations of language repeated incessantly.”

Patrick Lawrence in The Nation, Aug. 9, on the media’s reporting of the alleged collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.

To understand America’s crises today, one must first understand what has happened to two institutions: the university and the news media. They do not regard their mission as educating and informing but indoctrinating.

In this column, I will focus on the media. I will dissect one issue that I know extremely well: the national and local coverage of the invitation extended to me to guest conduct the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The concert took place last week.

I am well aware that this event is far less significant than many other issues. But every aspect of the reporting of this issue applies to virtually every issue the media cover.

Therefore, understanding how The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and NPR covered my story leads to an almost perfect understanding of how the media cover every story where the left has a vested interest.

When it comes to straight news stories—say, an earthquake in Central America—the news media often do their job responsibly. But when a story has a left-wing interest, the media abandon straight news reporting and take on the role of advocates.

As I explained in detail in a previous column, the board of directors of the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra and its conductor, Guido Lamell, invited me to guest conduct a Haydn symphony at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

I have conducted regional orchestras in Southern California over the last 20 years.

Sometime thereafter, four members of the orchestra published a letter asking their fellow musicians not to perform, claiming, “Dennis Prager is a right-wing radio host who promotes horribly bigoted positions.”

They were joined by former Santa Monica Mayor Kevin McKeown, who announced, “I personally will most certainly not be attending a concert featuring a bigoted hate-monger,” among others.

Then, The New York Times decided to write a piece on the controversy.

The first question is why? Why would the Times write about a controversy begun by a few members of a community orchestra in California?

I am quite certain that one reason was to protect the left. My original column on the issue, titled “Can a Conservative Conduct an Orchestra?“, went viral. And it made the left look bad.

Not only was the left trying to prevent conservatives from speaking; it was now trying to prevent a conservative from not speaking—from just making music.

Therefore, it was necessary to show that the left in Santa Monica had legitimate reasons to try to prevent me from conducting. And the only way to do that was to reaffirm that I am a hater and a bigot.

The Times writer wasted no time in portraying me that way. He wrote, “a number of them are refusing to play the fund-raiser, saying that allowing the orchestra to be conducted by Mr. Prager, who has suggested that same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy and incest, among other contentious statements, would be tantamount to endorsing and normalizing bigotry.”

Lesson No. 1: When the mainstream media write or say that a conservative “suggested” something that sounds outrageous, it usually means the conservative never actually said it.

After all, why write “suggested” and not “said” or “wrote”? Be suspicious whenever anything attributed to a conservative has no quotation marks and no source.

Seven paragraphs later—long after having mischaracterized my words to prime the readers’ perception—the Times writer did quote me on the subject.

He said, “Mr. Prager suggested that if same-sex marriage were legalized, then ‘there is no plausible argument for denying polygamous relationships, or brothers and sisters, or parents and adult children, the right to marry.’”

Though no context was given, the words quoted are accurate and a source was given. It was a 2014 column I wrote about judges having hubris for overturning voters in state after state who voted to keep marriage defined as the union of a man and a woman.

I was responding to then-District Judge Vaughn Walker, who ruled that California’s Proposition 8, which amended the state’s constitution to define marriage as “the union of a man and woman,” was unconstitutional.

One of Walker’s arguments was that “Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis.”

I wrote in the column, “If American society has a ‘constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis,’ then there is no plausible argument for denying polygamous relationships, or brothers and sisters, or parents and adult children, the right to marry.”

Had The New York Times author been intellectually honest, he would have written the context and the entire quote.

Or, if he had wanted to merely paraphrase me, he could have written, “Prager suggested that if same-sex marriage were legalized, there were no arguments against legalizing polygamy and adult incest.”

But that would have sounded a lot less awful than saying I suggested same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy and incest.

So, for as long as human beings and the internet exist, people who wish to dismiss me or my views on same-sex marriage will quote The New York Times mischaracterization. Readers will not know that the quote about same-sex marriage and incest is not mine but that of a New York Times writer.

Lesson No. 2: When used by the mainstream media, the words “divisive” or “contentious” simply mean “leftists disagree with.”

Both words were used in The New York Times piece. The writer wrote that my “political views are divisive” and that I’ve made “other contentious statements.”

But the only reason my views are “divisive” and “contentious” is The New York Times differs with them.

During the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama, did The New York Times once describe anything he did or said as “divisive” or “contentious” (including his pre-2012 opposition to the legalization of same-sex marriage)?

Lesson No. 3: Contrary evidence is omitted.

Despite all the Santa Monica musicians who supported my conducting; despite the musicians from other orchestras—including the Los Angeles Philharmonic—who asked to play when I conducted; and despite the orchestra’s conductor and board members who have followed my work for decades, not one quote in the entire article described me in a positive light.

Rather, the article is filled with quotes describing me in the worst possible way.

Two of the four musicians who wrote the original letter against me are quoted extensively (calling me “horribly bigoted” and saying I help “normalize bigotry”); a gay member of the orchestra is quoted accusing me of writing “some pretty awful things about gay people, women, and minorities” (for the record, I have never written an awful word about gay people, women, or minorities); and the former mayor’s attack on me was quoted.

Lesson No. 4: Subjects are covered in line with left-wing ideology.

The subject of the article could have easily (and more truthfully) been covered in a positive way, as something unifying and uplifting.

“Despite coming from different political worlds, a leading conservative and a very liberal city unite to make music together”—why wasn’t this the angle of the story?

Similarly, instead of its headline, “Santa Monica Symphony Roiled by Conservative Guest Conductor,” the Times could have used a headline and reported the very opposite: “Santa Monica Symphony Stands by Conservative Guest Conductor.”

That also would have conveyed more truth than the actual headline. But the difference between “roiled by” and “stands by” is the difference between a left-wing agenda and truth.

And even with the headline as it appeared in the Times, shouldn’t the story have offered quotes from supportive musicians to balance the negativity? One was left wondering why the invitation to guest conduct was offered to such a person to begin with.

Now let’s go to the Los Angeles Times, which was as negative as The New York Times, though at least its two negative columns were opinion columns—unlike The New York Times, they were not news stories, strictly speaking.

On Aug. 8, Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik, a Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote a column headlined “How right-winger Dennis Prager politicized his own symphony gig—and declared himself the victim.”

The mendacity of the title is quite something. Never in all the years I have conducted orchestras have I used the opportunity to say a political word. My sole purpose has been to conduct orchestras, raise funds for those community orchestras, and bring new people to classical music.

The only people to ever politicize my conducting appearances are a few left-wing musicians and politicians in Santa Monica.

Those people made my conducting a political issue. Yet Hiltzik writes that I am the one who did. “It’s Prager himself who pumped up the political component of the controversy,” he says.

This is a fine example of “the indefensibly corrupt manipulations of language repeated incessantly in our leading media.”

It is also worth noting that every mainstream news source, like the Los Angeles Times, identified me as either “right-wing” or “conservative.”

Commentators and talk show hosts on the left, however, are virtually never identified as “left-wing” or “liberal.” This is because in the closed world of the left, the left is the norm and the right is the aberration.

Hiltzik also wrote that “many in the orchestra find Prager’s views noxious.” That was after writing, “So far, seven musicians have said they won’t perform … leaving 70 still on the roster.”

Apparently, about one out of 10 is “many.” (Hiltzik also didn’t mention the equal number of musicians from other orchestras who asked to play when I conducted.)

Then there was the column by the Los Angeles Times classical music critic, Mark Swed.

He wrote: “Can a divisive public conservative amateur musician conduct an orchestra? That’s asking for trouble.”

Note again the word “divisive”—only conservatives divide because, again, in the mind of the left, left is normative. And in case you missed it the first time, Swed later wrote about my “militant polarizing of issues.”

As a conservative, I am not only divisive. I am a militant polarizer.

Does Swed provide an example of my militant polarizing? Yes, just one: my “calling liberalism a cancer.”

Like The New York Times article, Swed did not place the words he attributed to me in quotation marks, and for good reason.

I have never in my life written or said that “liberalism is a cancer.” What I did write recently is that “leftism is a terminal cancer in the American bloodstream.”

But I always distinguish between leftism and liberalism because the two have almost nothing in common. Leftism is as anti-liberal as it is anti-conservative. But Swed knows that writing “liberalism is a cancer” renders me far more extreme-sounding than writing “leftism is a cancer.”

However, what is most disturbing about Swed is not that he wrote a column against the Santa Monica Symphony inviting me to conduct. Hiltzik wrote a similar piece, after all.

But as irresponsible as Hiltizk’s piece was, Hiltzik is a political columnist. Swed is not. He is a classical music critic.

What he did was one of the reasons I wrote that leftism is a cancer in the American bloodstream: The left damages virtually everything it touches—the arts, education, religion, the economy, the news media, and the military, among other areas of life.

When I was a young man living in New York City, I read every column the legendary New York Times classical music critic Harold C. Schonberg wrote. I do not recall him ever writing a political column.

To this day, I have no idea whether Schonberg was a liberal, a leftist, a conservative, or a Buddhist. He knew his role was to write about music. Swed, a man of the left, does not.

Finally, we come to NPR. It published a piece on Aug. 13 titled “Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra Confronts Controversy Over Right-Wing Guest Conductor.”

Putting the title aside—again, it communicates a negative story when a positive take would have been just as valid—the piece was considerably more balanced than those of the Los Angeles Times or that of The New York Times.

But it had the usual media defect: It gave away its political bent. The second paragraph read:

Dennis Prager’s day job, however, has members of the orchestra up in arms—and laying down their instruments. He is a conservative talk show host who often targets multiculturalism, Muslims and LGBTQ people.

The writer gave an example in each case.

For multiculturalism, she cited a column I wrote titled “1,400 Girls Raped by Multiculturalism.” In it I described the kidnapping and sexual enslavement of over 1,400 English girls by young Muslim men over the course of more than a decade—while the police and the media conspired never to divulge that the rapists were Muslim.

The reason, as British authorities later admitted, was their commitment to multiculturalism.

But for a writer at NPR—even one who did not go out of her way to portray me as a mean-spirited bigot, as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times did—the mere fact that I wrote a column against multiculturalism explains why members of the orchestra were “up in arms.”

As for “targeting” Muslims, she cited my column titled “Yes, Muslims Should Be Asked to Condemn Islamic Terror.”

In NPR’s moral universe, asking Muslims to condemn Islamic terror is equivalent to “targeting” Muslims. When the left demands that our white president condemn white supremacist violence, is it targeting whites?

And the example she supplied for my “targeting” LGBTQ people is my 2014 critique of judges who, I argued, overreached their authority when they overturned popular votes to keep marriage defined as the union of a man and a woman.

The whole article was a critique of judges, not LGBTQ people. But on the left, merely disagreeing with judges about an LGBTQ issue is “targeting” LGBTQ people.

In summary, all mainstream media coverage of this one story was tainted, biased, often false, and predicated solely on left-wing presumptions.

Magnify what they did to me a thousandfold and you will begin to understand media behavior over the last two generations, and especially behavior today, when hysteria and advocacy have completely replaced news reporting.

The media pay little or no price among those who still believe them.

But I will pay a price. The New York Times lied when it wrote that I “suggested that same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy and incest.” Yet that will be cited forever as if it were true.

It’s already begun. On the night of the concert, the Fox TV station in Los Angeles reported:

A left-wing attempt to boycott a performance of the Santa Monica Symphony due to a guest appearance by conservative radio host Dennis Prager backfired on Wednesday night; the event was a sellout. … Prager has made controversial comments in the past, saying that he believes gay marriage would lead to incest.

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Source: https://www.dailysignal.com/2017/08/23/key-ways-mainstream-media-distorts-truth/

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The post Here Are Some Key Ways the Mainstream Media Distorts the Truth first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.