[Vision2020] Fwd: Former Fox News 'terror expert' gets prison for fraudulent CIA claim

[Ted Moffett]

Contemporary media, Internet included, is beyond even what George Orwell
could have imagined in terms of doublespeak bizarre absurdity... Just one
example is Fox News' slogan "Fair and Balanced."

I'm "Waiting for Godot."  When is the appearance scheduled?
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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Wonderful quote from the following article on Fox News:

"If I want real, objective reporting, rather than trying to stomach Fox
News, I’d rather buy the National Enquirer.

Same difference."
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derrick-k-baker/fox-news-unfair-unbalance_b_342141.html
Fox News: Unfair & Unbalanced
03/18/2010 05:12 am 05:12:02 | *Updated* May 25, 2011

*Derrick K. Baker* <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/derrick-k-baker>

The only time I’m forced to suffer the myopic, unceremonious on-air
“talent” at Fox News is every other week when I visit my plain-spoken
barber, Larry, who has cut my ever-graying hair and shared his unvarnished
and liberal-to-centrist opinions for nearly 35 years.

Although Larry doesn’t tune into Fox News as much as he used to on occasion
he still dials in to the blowhard Bill O’Reilly, and probably also listens
to the blow-harder Sean Hannity and the blow-hardest Glenn Beck on the days
I’m not there.

Although no fan of those three media and cultural lightning rods, Larry
watches their histrionic performances to stay clued in to what the enemy,
as he calls them, is talking about and focusing on. That’s the best way to
know what you’re up against, he contends, and to plan counter attacks, when
and if necessary.

Now, on the heels of the ostensibly just-ended drama between Fox News and
the Obama White House, now is an ideal time for people across the
ideological aisle and old school, traditional journalists alike to wonder
aloud about the legitimacy of Fox News’ claim that the operation is fair
and balanced and a genuine news source that ranks at or near the top of
cable TV ratings not because of its sensationalist slants and its
“talents’” bombastic outbursts, but because of the integrity and veracity
of its news operation.

However, truth be told, Fox News is as fair and balanced as water is dry.

Put another way, that operation with both sycophants and critics alike
following it these days for its ability to stay in the news as much as the
station reports the news is as fair and balanced as Detroit is prosperous.

Because I voted for Barack Obama, and because I was figuratively raised on
the Associated Press Stylebook and because I received a quality
news/editorial journalism education, among other personal and professional
reasons, I am not wired or predisposed to believe that a cable TV
personality’s appearance should almost always include a blistering or
skeptical partisan attack on just about any person, place or thing that
doesn’t mirror the anchor’s (or station’s) political notions about what
should be done, by whom and when.

Said differently, it’s readily apparent that Fox News despises the
president of the United States. The station’s on-air “talent,” management
and guests almost universally appear to hate the man, detest the fact that
he won the election, loathe his policies, dislike his appointments, abhor
his decision to take his wife out on a so-called date night, and likely,
are disgusted by the contour of his bottom lip and the length of his
fingernails.

When one of their most renown “talents” in Glenn Beck opined that he
believes the deep-seated hatred for white people,” it was clear that if the
president’s communications team nevertheless unconditionally engaged Fox
News going forward, their actions would epitomize magnanimity to the
highest degree.

That didn’t happen. When el presidente recently appeared on all of the
other network talk shows to tout his still-divisive healthcare plan, the
fine folks at Fox News weren’t on his list of things to do and places to
visit. In response to questions of why Fox News was marginalized, the White
House called them “an ideological outlet” and not a legit news gathering
and reporting entity.

Really. You think?

As reported in a Chicago Tribune editorial, “White House communications
director Anita Dunn called Fox ‘the research arm or the communications arm
of the Republican Party.’ Her deputy, Dan Pfeiffer, said the administration
‘decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the
mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization.’”

David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, even chimed in that Fox is
“not a news organization.” He added that bona fide journalists — who still
believe that the word objectivity has some level of import in their
profession — “ought not to treat them that way. We’re not going to treat
them that way.”

The Tribune editorial agreed with Fox News’ Chris Wallace that the
president’s handlers were “the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with
in my 30 years in Washington” in light of the White House’s attempt to
bypass Fox News and prevent one of the station’s reporters from
participating in interviews with Kenneth Feinberg, who is leading the
charge to determine the level of compensation for executives at companies
bailed out by the Obama administration. The White House relented on that
decision.

Fox News is great entertainment. When Hannity protested Obama’s speech to
schoolchildren, which turned out to be much ado about nothing,” why get
angry? I believe in the First Amendment, journalism school and the Fourth
Estate. I also believe that when clowns do funny things, you should laugh.

If I want real, objective reporting, rather than trying to stomach Fox
News, I’d rather buy the National Enquirer.

Same difference.

On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 5:43 AM, Moscow Cares <moscowcares at moscow.com>
wrote:

Courtesy of *Stars and Stripes* at:
>
>
> http://www.stripes.com/news/us/former-fox-news-terror-expert-gets-prison-for-fraudulent-cia-claim-1.419499
>
> --------------------------------
> Former Fox News 'terror expert' gets prison for fraudulent CIA claim
>
> ANNAPOLIS, Md. (Tribune News Service) — The Annapolis man who appeared as
> a guest on Fox News claiming to be an ex-CIA employee was sentenced to 33
> months in prison on Friday.
>
> In addition, 62-year-old Wayne Simmons was ordered by U.S. District Court
> Judge Thomas Selby Ellis III to serve three years of supervised release,
> forfeit two firearms and $175,612 in criminal proceeds, and to pay
> restitution to his victims, the Department of Justice said Friday.
>
> Last year, the Justice Department accused him of falsifying his experience
> as a former "Outside Paramilitary Special Operation Officer" who served in
> the CIA between 1973 and 2000. He'd been a recurring guest on Fox News
> under that pretext, where he regularly criticized the Obama administration
> for its handling of the 2012 attack on the American diplomat compound in
> Benghazi, Libya.
>
> Simmons pleaded guilty to major fraud against the government, wire fraud
> and a firearms offense in April. While Simmons admitted that no record or
> evidence existed of his service in the CIA through his guilty plea, he did
> not admit to making false statements about his record.
>
> "Wayne Simmons is a fraud," said Dana J. Boente, U.S. Attorney for the
> Eastern District of Virginia. "Simmons has no military or intelligence
> background, or any skills relevant to the positions he attained through his
> frauds. He is quite simply a criminal and a con man, and his fraud had the
> potential to endanger national security and put American lives at risk in
> Afghanistan."
>
> Simmons' lawyer, William Cummings, said he and his client had hoped to
> avoid jail time in Friday's sentencing. The attorney said he'd pushed for
> Simmons to be placed under house arrest or for a probationary sentence,
> adding "this came down hard on him because he has (two) children.
>
> "It was a little harsher than we had hoped for, so we were a little
> disappointed in that regard," Cummings said.
>
> Prior to Friday's sentencing, former Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich wrote a
> letter on Simmons' behalf to Judge Ellis.
>
> In it, Ehrlich said he knew Simmons as "warm, forward thinking and above
> all patriotic."
>
> "Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a person more dedicated to the
> security of the U.S.A.," he continued.
>
> In response, the government's prosecuting attorneys wrote that they were
> "baffled" by Ehrlich's letter "in light of the actual and potential harm
> the defendant's crimes imposed on national security."
>
> Additionally, after a story posted in the Wednesday edition of The Capital
> included an interview where the former governor said he could not speak to
> knowing Simmons on a personal level, prosecutors also questioned the
> legitimacy of those writing on Simmons' behalf.
>
> Simmons' case also served a warning to news networks about properly
> vetting outside analysts whose, as CNN's Dylan Byers put it, "claims to
> expertise are often the result of their own self-promotion and past media
> appearances."
>
> While Fox News has distanced itself from Simmons, saying he was never a
> paid contributor, he served as an expert on military and international
> relations on a number of occasions since 2002.
>
> In 2004, he was recruited to a now defunct Department of Defense program
> that was billed as an initiative to bring in retired military officials
> who'd become successful television-news analysts to participate in military
> briefings and visit Guantanamo Bay, Rolling Stone reported. The program
> would later be disbanded in 2008 after a New York Times article found those
> involved were largely acting to promote agendas tied to the George W. Bush
> presidency when interviewed by media outlets and some did not disclose
> their ties to military contract work.
>
> The Justice Department reported that, in a statement of facts filed with
> his plea agreement, Simmons "admitted he defrauded the government in 2008
> when he obtained work as a team leader in the U.S. Army's Human Terrain
> Systems program." In addition, the department said he'd been deployed to
> Afghanistan in 2010 as an intelligence analyst to senior military personnel
> after falsifying his credentials.
>
> He'd had a delinquent tax bill of $1.1 million reduced by $430,000 in
> 2008, as court records state he invoked his supposed CIA credentials to
> invoke the debt relief.
>
> Yet, while he'd claimed a 27-year career in the CIA as a way to curry
> favor in both the defense contracting and media world, court records show
> that during that time, Simmons worked as everything from a nightclub
> bouncer to a defensive back for the NFL's New Orleans Saints in the months
> leading up to the 1978 season.
>
> It's why Judge Ellis said on Friday, after calling Simmons' claims of a
> career in the CIA "buffalo chips," that "[i]t's astonishing to me how many
> people believed otherwise," according to a New York Daily News article.
>
> The most recent clip of Simmons is an April 2015 interview on Fox News
> Radio with anchor Brian Kilemeade.
>
> Still available on radio.foxnews.com he calls the Obama administration
> "the worst administration ... that this country will have ever seen."
>
> --------------------------------
>
> Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .
>
> "Moscow Cares"
> http://www.MoscowCares.com <http://www.moscowcares.com/>
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
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