Charming piece of pro-Muslim propaganda brought your way by CBBC Newsround;
Non-Muslims are being asked to try wearing a hijab, a type of headscarf, for a day to find out more about why women wear them. World Hijab Day calls on non-Muslim women to try out life under the traditional head scarf. Some people think women should not have to cover their hair or face and think it is unfair because men don’t have to wear them.But for many women around the world, it is an important show of their faith.
Looking forward to CBBC pushing “World Wear a Cross Day” where Non Christians are encouraged to try out life wearing a crucifix.
Yes, I say “lie”. Mark Mardell is lying. I say he’s lying and not merely reporting something when he’s misinformed, or making a claim based on false information for which he’s not responsible. I’m saying Mardell is lying because he knows what he’s saying is not true.
The BBC’s US President editor continues pushing the White House talking points about the “Sequester” budget cuts on Today, and here’s a link to the printed version.
It’s more or less the same biased stuff he produced the other day, which I wrote about here. This time, though, instead of avoiding telling you who really came up with the Sequester plan, Mardell just openly lies about it.
Many Republicans say the idea for the “sequester” budget cuts was President Obama’s in the first place. The White House rejects that.
Whoever came up with the idea, the 2011 law meant failure to agree would cut both cherished Democratic programmes that helped the poor and defence spending beloved of Republicans.
There’s even a bit of bias in the last line there, which I’ll get to in a moment. First, to expose the lie.
It’s not just Republicans saying it. By phrasing it that way, Mardell leads you to believe that it’s a matter of opinion. In fact, as I showed in my previous post on Mardell’s spin, the White House has admitted that it was the President’s offer. I’ll just reprint the quote from CNBC (not Fox News, not Breitbart) about it, to save defenders of the indefensible the pain of having to read another post of mine:
Woodward documents in his 2012 book The Price of Politics that team Obama first proposed the idea of the sequester. Expanding on his work in a Sunday Washington Post op-ed, he noted—as he has before—that both President Obama and his would-be Treasury Secretary Jack Lew lied on the campaign trail by saying the sequester originated with House Republicans. The White House has now ceded that fact.
“Fact”. Not good enough for you? Forbes says it was His idea. The Washington Post, which Mardell reads regularly, gives His claim Four Pinocchios, and provides evidence to back up the fact that it was His idea. Even Politifact rates the President’s claim that the cuts was Congress’s idea as “mostly false”. Politico, which Mardell reads regularly, almost admitted it, but they couldn’t quite bring themselves to hurt Him and so framed it in an amusingly contorted bit of spin that would make Helen Boaden proud:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed to give Obama the authority…
Then there’s this bit from a different Washington Post article (not Fox News, not Breitbart):
Last year, the House passed two bills that would have stopped the sequester and replaced some of the spending cuts with others. But the White House said the magnitude of the cuts was unacceptable and would imperil critical government programs.
Anyone who gets their information on US issues from the BBC will be very aware of which Party runs the House. The President could have prevented this, but chose not to. Curiously, Mardell chose not to tell you about it.
If none of this is good enough for you, here’s White House spokesman Jay Carney, personal friend of BBC Washington correspondent and anchor of BBC World News America Katty Kay, saying, “the sequester was one of the ideas yes put forward, yes, by the president’s team.”
In other words, Mardell knows exactly who started this, exactly whose idea the sequestered cuts are, and exactly what he’s doing when he misleads you. Blame must always be shifted from The Obamessiah. Trapped in a world He never made, it’s not His fault, you see.
Almost forgot about the bias in that sentence about which cuts supposedly hurt whom. Consider the pantomime caricatures Mardell uses: the Democrats want to help the poor, while it’s the war machine that’s so beloved by the Republicans. Can you tell where you’re meant to boo and hiss, and where you’re meant to cheer? I guess that makes Mardell the pantomime dame, although that’s probably an insult to the integrity of pantomime dames everywhere.
In case you didn’t come away from all this “journalism” with the idea that the cuts supposedly forced on Him by evil Republicans would be a catastrophe for the country (another White House talking point which is going to turn out not so true) and, by extension, the UK and the world (which is why it gets promoted on Today), the BBC’s US President editor ends with this bit of dramatic prose:
There is seemingly no end to this toxic tale of cruel dismemberment and government by crisis.
Emotive terms, value judgment, full stop. Notice whom he’s criticizing, and who gets a free pass. This is an editorial, an opinion piece, not journalism. Don’t trust him or the BBC on US issues.This is your license fee hard at work.
PS: I realize most people here don’t really care much about the US or much foreign stuff at all, and are mostly – and quite rightly – concerned with the BBC’s bias on domestic issues. All I can say is that you should be concerned that the BBC spreads poison elsewhere at your expense, and that they’ve clearly gone far beyond their remit of providing public service broadcasting and are actually dedicated to expanding the BBC’s tentacles across the globe purely because they can. The BBC exists now for itself, and not for you. It’s also a relentless drive for more revenue, something else that’s not supposed to be part of the BBC’s reason for existence. The BBC does this stuff in your name, and the BBC bias is everywhere, across the spectrum of broadcasting, all over the world.
The twists and turns of the Rennard saga seem to be taking the BBC into novel territory. We have had Lib Dem stalwart and BBC favourite Shirley Williams riding to the rescue of Rennard, praising him for his moral virtue. Then on Today this morning there was an odd item concerning the experience of women working in the political sphere. The meme being retailed was that ALL politics was chauvinistic and full of groping male MPs until the year of our lord 1997 when thanks to the enlightened policies of Labour, the Commons suddenly saw many more women and so men could no longer ride roughshed over the fairer sex. I think it was Barbara Follet who was interviewed, and who arrived in Parliament ..erm.. 1997.
John McCarthy hears about the Arirang or Mass Games in North Korea’s capital Pongyang; a dazzling display by thousands of marching, dancing, skipping, gymnastics and… flip charts. He talks to visitors to the games photographer Jeremy Hunter, former diplomat James Hoare and tourist Tony Pletts.
Fascinating what an upbeat little tale we have about one of the cruellest regimes in the world from the BBC….
We are witnessing an ‘ amazing stage, an incredible event….there is something here that these people have got, this system has got….the minders are really really wonderful…you only get to see what they want you to see but you really do get a sense of what life is like for Koreans…picnics and dances at the weekend….an element of Disney involved….it makes you appreciate just how different life could be from the life you lead at home….absolutely a thumbs up to go see one of the great spectacles of the world’
Curious how different is the BBC’s approach to that they take when reporting from Israel….possibly the only true democracy in the Middle East, a highly successful, modern progressive country which has succeeded despite being under constant attack for over 60 years.
Israel is a savage and oppressive regime whilst North Korea is somewhat like Disneyland?
Human rights in North Korea are heavily restricted. There is no right to free speech, and the only radio, television, and news providers that are deemed legal are those operated by the government.[1][2] It is estimated that between 150,000 and 200,000 political prisoners are detained in concentration camps, where they perform forced labour and risk summary beatings, torture and execution.
The following section is a direct quote from the United Nation’s Human Rights Resolution 2005/11 referring specifically to occurrences in North Korea:
Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, public executions, extra judicial and arbitrary detention, the absence of due process and the rule of law, imposition of the death penalty for political reasons, the existence of a large number of prison camps and the extensive use of forced labour;
All-pervasive and severe restrictions on the freedoms of thought, conscience, religion, opinion and expression, peaceful assembly and association and on access of everyone to information, and limitations imposed on every person who wishes to move freely within the country and travel abroad;
Continued violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women, in particular the trafficking of women for prostitution or forced marriage, ethnically motivated forced abortions, including by labour inducing injection or natural delivery, as well as infanticide of children of repatriated mothers, including in police detention centres and labour training camps.
Despite putting in the basic facts from the report the tone adopted by the BBC is downbeat and defeatist with an emphasis on an economy with ‘significant “challenges” ’ …though Moodys itself doesn‘t use the word ‘Significant‘ …..except in the positive sense as it says itself: ‘the UK’s creditworthiness remains extremely high, rated at Aa1, because of the country’s significant credit strengths.’
Read Moody’s actual press release and you will see a much more upbeat analysis of the UK economy…. supporting Osborne’s ‘strong track record of fiscal consolidation and political will.‘
The total positive growth for the period is 2.6%.
The total negative growth for the period is -1.2%
The sum total then is a positive growth of 1.4%….slow and low but not ‘failing’ and certainly not ‘contracting’ as the BBC so often state..
Look at the GDP figures since 2006.….they show that even after the deepest recession since the ’30’s we have a GDP above that in 2006:
In 2006 we had a GDP figure (£m) of 353,777
In 2009 Q2 (The height of the recession) GDP was 349,261
In 2012 Q4 GDP was 360,483
Finally there’s the issue of Moody’s own credibility…..
The BBC has always attacked these credit rating agencies but seems happy to take the opportunity to give Osborne a dig.
However I did laugh when I heard this this morning from ‘Wake Up to Money’ (26 mins) from Mickey Clark in relation to the credit rating agencies:
‘They’re not regulated, they have got a lot of vested interests…and they got away scot free over the banking crisis.’
Whilst most political parties do sleaze, the Lib-Dems do it particularly well. The BBC has had little choice to run with Rennard after all this is just the latest instance in a line that weaves from Huhne to Laws, Brown to Oaten. Wonder what you make of the line the BBC is taking on this?
I’m sure by now everyone knows about the looming swinging budget cuts that will happen automatically if no new budget deal is reached between the Republicans and the President. This is known as the “sequester”, and is the result of them kicking the can down the road a while back.
The BBC reports that the President doesn’t want this to happen, thinks it’s a bad idea, and has called on Democrat Governors to try and influence the elected Representatives and/or Senators in their States to cave compromise.
He warned the $85bn (£56bn) cuts would put thousands of teachers out of work and bring economic uncertainty.
The president has called on Congress to pass revenue rises and narrow budget cuts to avoid the automatic reductions.
The Democratic president will travel to Virginia on Tuesday to discuss the cuts’ impact on the defence industry.
“These cuts do not have to happen,” Mr Obama told a bipartisan assembly of governors at the White House on Monday. “Congress can turn them off any time with just a little bit of compromise.”
“Revenue rises”. Typical partisan language there. The Republicans refer to it as “tax rises”, of course, and the BBC uses instead the Left-wing terminology. Is the President offering to compromise as well? Don’t be silly. He doesn’t, and shouldn’t have to. According to Mark Mardell, when Congress is controlled by Democrats who don’t need to negotiate with Republicans to pass His plans, it’s a Golden Age.
Unsurprisingly, there’s another point of view that these cuts won’t really do much damage at all. In fact, spending will actually continue to rise and rise. The “cuts” just mean that the spending will rise slightly less than it would have otherwise. Does that sound familiar? Even Forbes admits this. Equally unsurprising is the fact that, not only does the BBC refuse to acknowledge this, but they even manage to quote a cuddly Republican, Sen. McCain, who says he doesn’t totally blame the President and is hoping for a compromise to protect the defense industry.
The BBC dutifully informs you that both sides of the aisle will try to blame each other. So, whose fault is this, really? The BBC reports it this way:
The budget cuts, known in Washington DC as the sequester, were devised in 2011 as an intentionally painful cudgel to encourage Democrats and Republicans in Congress to strike a deal to reduce the US budget deficit.
Note the passive voice, as if the cuts materialized out of thin air during some bi-partisan discussions. In actual fact, it was the President’s idea. He and the White House have been lying about it, and the BBC plays along like the good little propaganda organ it is.
Woodward documents in his 2012 book The Price of Politics that team Obama first proposed the idea of the sequester. Expanding on his work in a Sunday Washington Post op-ed, he noted—as he has before—that both President Obama and his would-be Treasury Secretary Jack Lew lied on the campaign trail by saying the sequester originated with House Republicans. The White House has now ceded that fact.
The BBC doesn’t want you to know this, so they spin for the White House and deliberately mislead you. Defenders of the indefensible cannot impugn Woodward here. After all, not only is the above not from Fox News or Breitbart, but a previous book on the President by Woodward was lauded by the former BBC Washington correspondent and anchor of BBC World News America, Matt Frei. A diehard Obamessiah worshiper himself, Frei’s only concern then was that all the fascinating issues in the book might get in the way of the reader appreciating “the nuance of his finely-tuned brain”.
The cuts probably won’t be a big deal at all, and in fact will be considered a good start in some circles. The possibility of this is so great that Democrats and their lobbyists are worried about what might happen if there is no disaster. That’s in the Washington Post, not Fox News, not Breitbart. So the President has to do as much fear-mongering as possible, and work behind the scenes (i.e. get the Democrat Governors to do political cuts in the manner of Labour councils in Britain) to ensure as bad an outcome as possible. Is the BBC providing any analysis from this angle? Of course not. He can do no wrong. It’s not His fault, you see. And in any case, cutting government spending is a sin.
Your license fee hard at work, providing a propaganda outlet for the leader of a foreign country.
The BBC is at the heart of the corrupt political scheming that fills the pockets of politicians and their landowning friends with millions of pounds and the Green industries they back whilst those whose pockets have been rifled by greedy, duplicitous or ignorant politicians have to turn down the heating and switch off the lights.
The BBC has backed the Green lobby and ignores the corrupt politicians….when your fuel bill arrives you can be assured that not only are you paying £145 for the privilege of watching the BBC you are also paying through the nose for fuel because of that self same BBC.
Labour’s Ed Miliband started it all off with his industrial suicide policy committing Britain to cuts in CO2 of 80%.
It should be remembered that under Labour far more industry was destroyed than under the long Tory reign but you’d never guess from the BBC’s coverage of that era.
The massive political attack on industry and the Public’s wage packet conducted through corrupt energy policies is gathering pace as rich landowner’s bank accounts bulge with subsidised payments for allowing wind turbines on their land.
Politicians ride the wave of money themselves...corrupt morally, intellectually and financially, working simultaneously for Green industry pocketing large payments whilst pushing through legislation that is favourable to these industries.
Britain is teetering on the verge of industrial and social collapse as blackouts loom due to the increasingly onerous, ‘unbelievably aggressive CO2 reduction targets’ that will plunge us into a new dark Ages where industry flees the Country and the Public cannot afford to heat their homes or drive to work.
The Green lobby is set on destroying industry in the UK whilst China and India pump out vast and increasing quantities of CO2 that make our own emissions look insignificant.
MPs are ignorant or corrupt and sign up to these policies out of misguided and ignorant good intentions or a malevolent disregard for the common good as they fill their own pockets as they help themselves to the Public’s money voting in ever increasing payments to energy companies.
At the heart of all this is the BBC and its huge, powerful, one sided backing for the Green lobbyists.
The capture of the BBC and its enormous and influential propaganda platform by the Greens was a victory without compare. It has meant practically no opposition to the green steamroller as the BBC is the most powerful, respected and trusted broadcaster with enormous ability to define the narrative.
‘The “capacity to define potential risks and hazards is broadly aligned with the distribution of power among ‘credible,’ ‘authoritative,’ and ‘legitimate’ definers of ‘reality’ across the media field.” ‘ ‘….the BBC [is] widely seen as an international leader in terms of balance, independence, and clarity. It is viewed as hegemonic within British broadcasting, helping to dictate the limits of what might be considered “news” in mainstream reporting.‘ Dr Joe Smith
The BBC decided that CO2 is a problem and has relentlessly pumped out propaganda to persuade or batter the Public into accepting that and the consequent measures needed to tackle the ‘problem’.
The BBC has brought into the fold many in academia, the arts and industry as they fall victim to the ‘consensus’, the manufactured consent that the BBC works so hard to enforce, people with doubts unwilling to stand out and be labelled as ‘deniers’.
Many I’m certain are not actual believers in man made global warming but are forced into acceptance by the ‘moral obligation’, the guilt that is placed upon them by the likes of the BBC which is an expert at manipulating images and perceptions linking man’s actions to natural disasters which in reality have extremely tenuous links.
Had the BBC done its job properly and not become an active propagandist for the Green lobby we might not now have MPs so willing and able to vote for the ‘consensus’ too afraid or too self interested to stand up and oppose this lunacy.
The BBC, ever ready to highlight ‘Big Business’ funding of climate sceptics, has refused pointblank to be similarly rigorous when it involves those who support the Cause.
Is it any wonder that they feel free to sit on committees that decide energy policy whilst pocketing green industry cash? They can dismiss newspaper reports as a ‘rightwing’ agenda…because of course the leftwing papers won’t report the corruption as they support the policies and the BBC looks the other way.
How to change the BBC and make it return to ethical journalism not green activism?
Write to your MP.
Maybe not!
That illustrates the problem with the BBC, it is unaccountable. Even now after ‘Savile’ it rides on essentially unaffected. A few bad headlines, a few waves at the top as there is a shuffle of jobs to make it look like something is being done but this time next year it will be more of the same, the innate leftwing biased reporting, the support for climate change and a disregard for any complaints.
The BBC are confident that they are unassailable as politicians are either in tune with the BBC ethos or are too scared to attempt to change it…or hopeful of getting a job there when falling on hard times. If ever there was an opportunity you might think it is now in the wake of ‘Savile’ but that was a failure of internal corporate procedure not of its political values and activities…..the BBC knows that and sails on regardless pumping out anti-government information and pro climate change hype recognisng no politician dare speak out, let alone act against it in any meaningful way.
Here we go with a new Open Thread before we even get to Monday morning! Do detail the bias.
Search Biased BBC
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