Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House

It's important to remember that "foreign aid" is actually domestic aid, i.e. is not money given from one country to another to purchase things, but things from particular vendors in a particular country given to another country, paid for by tax dollars. That massive aid to Israel (and Egypt, and wherever else) creates a block of insider companies in the US that need to lobby for Israeli belligerence (and promote the idea of constant existential threats to Israel) to protect a significant portion of their business.

This would happen whether or not these companies had any personal or ideological connection to Israel, but these relationships would tend to grow over time (between contractors and the Israeli government.)

edit: The US as a whole gets nothing but hassle and cognitive dissonance out of the relationship, but just like any war racket, people producing the material for that war get wealthy enough to get their politicians elected and perpetuate the process.

> Unlike science, where at least in theory, everything is built from the ground up using first principles or built upon raw data collected, the "raw data" of journalism is just various types of conversations with people the journalist then has to verify, and gauge the reliability of.

Agreed.

> I personally don't think efforts to "fix the news" as a result of facebook or whatever make a lot of sense in this context. Instead, consumers of news need to habitually engage in the process that you call too much work.

Part of this process is reading the news critically, which I enjoy doing. From this article (emphasis mine):

> “The reaction ... WAS very different than it WOULD HAVE BEEN in the last administration,” this person said. “With the current administration, there ARE a different set of calculations in regard to addressing THIS.”

> The former senior intelligence official criticized how the administration handled the matter, remarking on the striking difference from past administrations, which LIKELY would have at a very minimum issued a démarche, or formal diplomatic reprimand, to the foreign government (INCLUDING ISRAEL) condemning its actions.

Citations aren't the answer in this case, but rather epistemology. Stating speculation as fact is an incredibly effective means of distorting the public's perception of reality, especially when the same distortion is presented repeatedly in different forms by various agencies. It seems to have become so common that even smart people don't pick up on it any more. If you start looking for it though, you'll see it everywhere.

Whether this deceit was intentional or accidental is unknown, but the end result remains the same: the public's perception of the details of this story consists of certainty about specific details, based purely on speculation.

https://spiritofcontradiction.eu/rowan-duffy/2017/06/07/fake...

https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-know-that-what-you-kn...

> It'd be malpractice by a major intelligence agency not to attempt this

And the countermeasure is so simple that even the most simple of simpletons can understand it.

"Hey, this room is bugged. Don't talk there if you want a private conversation."

>Israel is the boss, US is the muscle

>If you try to end it, you'll be called antisemites, Holocaust deniers, etc. until you submit.

>> this has absolutely been my observation as well

Have you considered that you've been called antisemites because you are. Not because you have experience with "try[ing] to end it"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism#Political_antisem...

US is not controlled by Israel and you're idiots for thinking that. There many logical ways to reach this conclusion, but just for fun here's a question: If it's so easy to control ~350m people of the US wouldn't the controllers be China or Russia? or wouldn't some rich cocaine manufacturer lobby its way to the congress and have that sold in supermarkets?

(I do realize that using the term "idiots" means I'll get downvotes, but isn't there an exception considering that they really are idiots (and antisemites))

Just putting myself in the shoes of someone at Politico, I think they would point out a few things.

Is it reasonable to compare this article to a wikipedia article? The publishing time frame and the number of people involved are way different. Wikipedia isn't intended to be a source for current events. It isn't journalism.

Maybe more importantly, is Wikpedia really an objective or fair look at an issue? For sandals sure, but look up a controversial event page and I bet things start to seem more questionable. That's a point where the reputation of a newspaper is an advantage over Wikpedia because at wikipedia, each page, each sentence can have a different author with a different viewpoint or agenda.

Is the author as important as the publication itself? The editors are the ones making final decisions on things. For example, The Economist doesn't even use bylines. Journalists see themselves as researchers more than authors. The role of the "Author" if there is one is the editor.

An exhuastively cited and sourced article is difficult to read. The narrative is easily lost, and the source content is skipped over by most readers. And you still need to spend a lot of time combing through the source matter for it to be a meaningful improvement over an unsourced article

Last, journalists rely on an idea of common knowledge. They aren't going to provide sourcing on a commmonly reported facts like "stingray-like devices have been found near the whitehouse". That isn't as true in academia where citations probably would be used for that type of fact.

Overall, I'm not unsimpathetic to what you and OP are saying, I think with the internet news media could link articles and sources together better for easier validation.

However, the idea that this type of stuff can eliminate the need for a high level of engagement with the news, critical thinking skills, I don't agree with.