CNN chaos
Something big happened at CNN, but it’s not really clear what it was.
Here’s what’s been revealed so far:
Three CNN journalists, including the executive editor in charge of a new investigative unit, have resigned after the publication of a Russia-related article that was retracted.
Thomas Frank, who wrote the story in question; Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the unit; and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit, have all left CNN.
“In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignations of the employees involved in the story’s publication,” a spokesman said Monday evening.
An internal investigation by CNN management found that some standard editorial processes were not followed when the article was published, people briefed on the results of the investigation said.
The journalists who “resigned” (my guess is it wasn’t entirely voluntary, although the reports would have you think it was) are higher level employees. This isn’t a case of the little guys taking the fall. CNN has made errors before and/or published “fake news,” but this sort of mass resignation of top reporters is very unusual, even when errors are made. Something quite egregious must have happened, or else there was a threat to sue that must have been exceptionally serious in its possible consequences.
The story, which reported that Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials,” cited a single anonymous source.
These types of stories are typically reviewed by several departments within CNN — including fact-checkers, journalism standards experts and lawyers — before publication.
Anonymous sources have become standard these days, and anonymous sources who are wrong—or liars—are pretty standard these days as well. This source must have been especially shady, and there was no corroboration from another source. In addition, it sounds as though even the most rudimentary rules about the chain of checkers were not followed.
In a staff meeting Monday afternoon, investigative unit members were told that the retraction did not mean the facts of the story were necessarily wrong.
Are we supposed to believe that three major players at CNN were fired or asked to resign for a story that was essentially true but just didn’t follow the rules? That completely strains credibility.
Here are the resumes of the three:
Frank worked for USA Today and Newsday for three decades, pursuing investigations and covering the Iraq war as an embedded reporter, before coming to work at CNN.
He was part of an ambitious new investigative unit that was created last winter, bringing together existing teams from within the company and new hires like Lichtblau.
A veteran of The New York Times who won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2006, Lichtblau joined CNN just three months ago.
Haris, who was named the executive editor of CNN Investigates in January, was previously the executive editor of CNNMoney.
These aren’t just reporters, these are seasoned investigative reporters and one is a Pulitizer Prize winner. I no longer find any of that a reason to trust a journalist to tell the truth. Maybe they got cocky, but I think the basic impetus was almost certainly the hunt for the smoking gun that will finally implicate the hated, hated Trump once and for all. Cutting corners must have seemed a righteous thing for this crew to do in the pursuit of journalism’s great white whale.
For those curious, as I was, this doesn’t seem to be the same Thomas Frank, political analyst, who wrote “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” — a book on the annoying notion liberals have that flyover Americans vote against their interests when they vote Republican.
I find it interesting CNN couldn’t bluster through on this by covering the next scandal all the harder.
I notice that the chickens are coming home to roost for unhinged liberals lately. Three academics lost their positions for public expressions of anti-white bigotry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/us/yale-dean-yelp-white-trash.html
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/06/25/college-professor-fired-following-remarks-on-tucker-carlson-tonight.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4639136/Delaware-professor-attacked-Otto-Warmbier-sacked.html
It has puzzled me, too, Neo, but I think the explanation might be staring us in the face. I believe it isn’t that these reporters and editors did anything they have already done before, or done anything that any other investigative group at CNN has done to date on this story- rather, I think Zucker decided to sacrifice three pawns in order to make it appear that all the others not fired are somehow more truthful in their reporting.
Think about it- CNN had major egg on its face after Comey testified exactly opposite to CNN reporting about what would be in his testimony. Combine that will all the other stories in the last 6 months that CNN reported on, but were almost instantly contradicted by the parties involved in sworn testimony, and you have a cascading decline in credibility. How do you counter-act that? You sacrifice someone to make it look like you take professional standards seriously. I don’t think it will work, however- they are too invested in bringing Trump down, and at this point it has to be clear to all but the most die-hard Trump haters that the entire Russian story is a gigantic hoax, and if you actually do start acting professionally, you have nothing to print on the matter.
And to fake that professional credibility, you can’t fire nobodies- the sacrificed must be high profile members of the particular profession, such as Pulitzer Prize winners.
And my first comment should have read:
“I believe it isn’t that these reporters and editors did anything they haven’t already done before, or done anything that any other investigative group at CNN hasn’t done to date on this story”
I really need to proofread more consistently.
Well, the hits keep coming.
I expect everyone knows by now that Veritas just dropped a MOAB on CNN in the form of an undercover video in which a senior Producer opines that there is no evidence to support any of CNN’s plethora of Russian stories; they are all ratings driven. Supposedly, Zucker confirmed as much in internal communications.
I don’t know how O’Keefe and Veritas manage this; and I assume that CNN will react by going all out to destroy him, just as Planned Parenthood has. Stay tuned.
In unrelated developments, it turns out that the Deputy, later Acting, FBI Director had serious personal animosity toward General Flynn that pre-dated the inquisition against him.
The sleaze is enough to discourage a citizen. I summarize much of what I learn about it in emails to selected people, including my college age grandchildren. While I think they should be aware, I do worry that the information could also turn them into permanent cynics who decide that if our “free” Republic is this bad, an alternative might be better. More than a few tyrannies have developed in reaction to corruption.
The O’Keefe thing could also be the catalyst, OldFlyer. The one thing I have always admired about O’Keefe’s method is this- he lets you hang yourself a little at a time by spacing his video releases in a well thought out process. I think one can be reasonably sure this isn’t the only video O’Keefe has on this particular employee, or the only employee of which he has video.
“For those curious, as I was, this doesn’t seem to be the same Thomas Frank, political analyst, who wrote “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” – a book on the annoying notion liberals have that flyover Americans vote against their interests when they vote Republican.”
I was wondering this myself. The “Kansas” Frank is often a finalist for the annual “Linda Lovelace Award for State fellating.”
Shades of Rathergate:
“In a staff meeting Monday afternoon, investigative unit members were told that the retraction did not mean the facts of the story were necessarily wrong.”
In other words: Fake, but accurate.
Lichtblau worked for the NYT for some years. He did a multi-piece work impugning Darrell Issa when the latter was chair of House Oversight and getting close to Benghazi and other scandals.
The accusations had to be walked back. SURprise.
The lawyers commenting on the Rolling Stone/UVa story suggested that you wait until after the proceedings before firing anybody. To do it in advance admits culpability. Legally bad idea.
I wonder what the Three are thinking. “We never got caught before. What happened?”
It’s definitely not the Kansas Frank. Here’s a picture of the CNN Frank plus good background info.
http://heavy.com/news/2017/06/thomas-tom-frank-cnn-fired-resigned-donald-trump/
Lately I’m liking Heavy.com for adding depth to current stories without much partisanship so far as I can tell.
wow. I just cant believe that the people who own stock in these media corps, are just going to continue to stay silent as these people set themselves and their brands on fire like this.
At some point someone has to step in and say enough. They are now tredding water so hard that another example of this and CNN is going down. By that I mean made into a punchline by their own side, and when the left abandons them, they are through.
I think their plan is to milk russia russia russia until they find another scandal to hype, but I dont think the MSM has gamed this out correctly. Each time they do this they lose a little more power to control the narrative.
Its almost as if Trump is goading them to extremes, and dangling the bait just out of reach that the smoking gun is right here just reach a little farther. And they keep coming, reaching and straining, totally blind to the cliff yawing just ahead.
There must be a lot more hidden here than we know of so far. I can’t believe CNN would fire these three simply because they continued the same kind of ” journalism” and anti-Trump actions that they’ve engaged in for several months. Perhaps these three are in some kind of legal trouble? For their “Russians did it” stories. And CNN would look a little better if they at least weren’t’ currently on staff.
Probably, simply just another dan rather moment for these three people vs some special ninja sacrificial strategy to make people trust CNN again.
CNN may well want to hype the russia stories for as long as that gets them ratings, and their ratings are up, IIRC.
BUT, they cannot afford putting forth easily falsified stories.
They have to maintain at least SOME level of credibility with their audience, and against their peer news organizations, even though they are definitely pushing a biased point of view that their audience desires.
I commented elsewhere: I wouldnt believe theres a source until cnn burns him/her, and lets us know how many other stories used this source. This might be another stephen glass type story, with the source being a Glass like figure. I wonder if CNN will release any details of their weekend investigation
This is what’s called a “show trial” or a “sacrificial lamb”. It is for public consumption to distract from the fact that much of their news is faked. “Lookee here we’re serious about this journalism stuff. We fired the bad guys. Shame on them.”
Some other fake news outlet will pick these 3 up in less than a month…we may not see them in front of a camera or read a solo by-line for awhile…but they’ll be back generating lies somewhere else. And someone’s ginning up a book deal…just wait & see.
Another win for the President. It’s been a good week for that.
Veritas is hanging over CNN like a dangling sword.
Look at the TIMING.
> journalism’s great white whale.
Or, as it is called these days, the great white male.
Veritas is hanging over CNN like a dangling sword.
I didn’t know what blert meant, but looks like he’s on to something.
Veritas is an ambush video catching a CNN producer admitting the Trump-Russia story is “mostly BS.” Apparently there are further such videos to drop.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/06/cnns-very-bad-week.php
zucker is hosed. he will be gone by EOY at the latest. then he will be indicted for knowingly publishing/showing government documents.
“I think Zucker decided to sacrifice three pawns in order to make it appear that all the others not fired are somehow more truthful in their reporting.” Yancey Ward
That may well be so and in support of that suspicion, I offer;
“CNN has been around for 37 years, our trustworthiness today is the same as it was a year ago, before people in high offices started questioning it. … those who rely on CNN trust CNN more than ever.” Jeff Zucker
Zucker said that about 8 days ago, 4-5 days later, CNN has to retract its fake news story.
So damage control may well have been the motive.
Now “a senior CNN producer was caught on camera by one of O’Keefe’s investigators admitting that the network’s relentless bashing of President Donald Trump with the Russia scandal lacks proof.” Bonifield further goes on to explain that the instructions come straight from the top, citing the CEO, Jeff Zucker: “Just to give you some context, President Trump pulled out of the climate accords and for a day and a half we covered the climate accords. And the CEO of CNN (Jeff Zucker) said in our internal meeting, he said good job everybody covering the climate accords, but we’re done with that, let’s get back to Russia.”
Hi everyone! I’m your friendly neighborhood liberal, and I thought I’d offer a few thoughts.
I’m surprised anyone takes CNN seriously as a journalistic outlet anymore! I stopped watching all cable news in, I think, 2004 when I realized they were entirely entertainment outlets, not journalistic enterprises. CNN doesn’t exist to inform, it exists to make money. Isn’t the easiest explanation for their quickness to publish a questionable story from a single anonymous source that CNN is competing with other media networks for viewers’ attention, which it then monetizes, and calculated that stories like this grab viewers’ attention?
But that aside, I’m fascinated by the notion that the primary motivation is bias against Trump, leading them to seek negative information about him they can use to hurt him. Has anyone considered if the reverse is true–that they genuinely believe Trump has done something wrong and are trying to ferret out facts about it? That is to say, in the first instance, Trump is blameless, but in the latter, what if he’s not?
Long story short, I haven’t heard any compelling explanation for all of his aberrant behavior–other than the worst case scenario, which is that it’s all true–and, given his penchant for obfuscation and opacity, you’d imagine that some of the details would get garbled.
But, seriously, why is anyone watching CNN?
“I stopped watching all cable news in, I think, 2004 when I realized they were entirely entertainment outlets, not journalistic enterprises” – Somebody
Did you stop listening to Rush and Hannity then too?
/jk
😉
I had an aha moment when I turned on CNN to get details about breaking news of a possible terrorist attack, and the top story was about American Idol. SO I flipped to Fox, thinking that if anyone would cover the story, it would be them. But their top story was…the same one about American Idol.
…aaaand scene.
http://nypost.com/2017/06/27/cnn-staffers-didnt-resign-over-retracted-story-they-got-fired/
The cable network’s coverage of Trump transition-team member Anthony Scaramucci came amid federal scrutiny of corporate parent Time Warner’s pending purchase by AT&T – and the widespread belief among media execs that CNN President Jeff Zucker can’t survive a merger.
“It’s not just Jeff Zucker, all Time Warner executives are anxious about if they will survive the merger,” a media source said Tuesday.
“What is interesting is that the AT&T execs who will decide who goes and who stays are [AT&T CEO] Randall Stephenson and [AT&T Entertainment Group CEO] John Stankey – who have a very good relationship with the current administration.”
Oh-Roh !
Hi Somebody,
“I’m surprised anyone takes CNN seriously as a journalistic outlet anymore! I stopped watching all cable news in, I think, 2004 when I realized they were entirely entertainment outlets, not journalistic enterprises.”
Anecdotal evidence is always suspect, for instance I have a liberal friend who takes everything CNN says as gospel. She’s been watching them for years and, along with NPR and PBS they are her go to source for news.
During the election she was ranting about how dangerous Trump was… and I assure you that she got that POV from those ‘sources’. Nothing I suggested made even a dent, after all they’re the experts.
“Has anyone considered if the reverse is true—that they genuinely believe Trump has done something wrong and are trying to ferret out facts about it?”
Why would “entirely entertainment outlets, not journalistic enterprises” try “to ferret out facts about it”?…
Immediately after the election, Podesta initiated the drumbeat of Russian interference and collusion which the Left jumped all over. As that senior CNN producer just admitted “the network’s relentless bashing of President Donald Trump with the Russia scandal lacks proof.” So, even after 7.5 months without any evidence emerging… what other than bias could lead them at this point to “genuinely believe Trump has done something wrong”?
The reason why we on the right believe it to be political BS, by people that could care less about the country is because actions speak louder than words.
“By their fruits shall ye know them”.
Geoffrey:
The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. CNN might have published it without due dilligence because it was seeking ratings, and the authors might have written it because they genuinely thought that Trump did something wrong and they wanted the public to know. I don’t know! I don’t know them or what’s in their heads. But Neo doesn’t either, and I offered it in contrast to her theory that they sought exclusively to hurt him, and conjured the story to those ends.
I’m not surprised, but do think it’s interesting, that one retracted story is being held up here as evidence that a crushing mountain of evidence of collusion is, in its entirety, false. Because, again, there is a consensus among the intelligrnce community that Russia intervened in favor of Trump, and a body of circumstantial evidence that Trump colluded, for which no one has offered a plausibly alternative explanation. (I.e., why did Trump feel compelled to produce a letter from his law firm suggesting that, other than over $100 million, Trump had earned no income from Russian sources in the last 10 years–an oddly specific time frame, an enormous exception, and an odd run-around of his actual tax returns, in refutation of his own son’s statements about Russian investment money? Why not just…release the returns? I mean, I’d really like to know!)
Huxley,
I notice that the chickens are coming home to roost for unhinged liberals lately. Three academics lost their positions for public expressions of anti-white bigotry.
Great news. Not only does it mean some chit people lost their jobs, but conservative disapproval is starting to have some pull. We’ve been far more tolerant of these people than they’ve been toward us, it’s nice to see them lose their jobs like this.
Without any evidence the chance that trump is an Russia asset is as much as Obama or Hillary was putin’s pet, why didn’t the msm pursue those leads that Obama and Hillary were colluding with putin to do harm to America if the left wing media were truly concerned of america’s interest? It is only logical to come to conclusion that the msm only pursue the trump collusion story for partisan reasons since that is the quickest route and only hope they had to impeach trump. In fact there are mountain of actual evidence that Obama and Hillary had done substantial favors for putin while all the so called evidence that trump was colluding with Russian was circumstantial and minority report-ish. Show us what favor has trump done for Putin.
Somebody,
But that aside, I’m fascinated by the notion that the primary motivation is bias against Trump, leading them to seek negative information about him they can use to hurt him. Has anyone considered if the reverse is true—that they genuinely believe Trump has done something wrong and are trying to ferret out facts about it? That is to say, in the first instance, Trump is blameless, but in the latter, what if he’s not?
We know from ‘Shattered’ that the Trump-Russia story was a talking point invented by Hillary’s team within 48 hours of her loss. The DNC-MSM was happy to oblige her and ran with the story. The fact that the story’s been a ratings bonanza helps too, of course.
NOTE TO SELF: next time a Republican wins the presidency, invest in CNN stock. Next time a Democrat wins the presidency, invest in Smith & Wesson stock.
But, seriously, why is anyone watching CNN?
Agreed, and the same goes for Fox. I had to stop watching the news altogether a month or so ago as it was bad for my teeth (all that grinding).
Yancey Ward Says:
June 27th, 2017 at 3:16 pm
And my first comment should have read:…
I really need to proofread more consistently.
* * *
You’re fired!
😉
There is a confirmation biases on the left since they love Obama so much even if there was evidence that Obama was colluding with Russia with intents of harming America they would simply assume Obama was doing so for good intents. On the other hand even if trump is corporating with putin for some honourable causes since they hate trump so much they would automatically assume they are colluding for meticulous reasons. However, don’t forget the lessons from 1984, accusing political opponents of colluding with foreign powers is like the left’s most cliched and often used game plan
The bigger story we’re all missing here…
It was just, what, 3-4 weeks ago that Fox was on the ropes with all their firings and declining ratings; the NYT gets hosed at Comey’s hearing and they’re talking about major layoffs; and now CNN is on the ropes with firings and we can expect at least one more there (Banifield) before they’re through.
We’ve never seen this much instability in the MSM before. They’re blowing their own heads off, mostly over Trump. It’s insane and wonderful and beautiful to watch.
“the authors might have written it because they genuinely thought that Trump did something wrong and they wanted the public to know.”
Poppycock. For the author’s to genuinely think that Trump did something wrong, they’d have to have some evidence of it (which the senior producer just admitted they do not) but if they had ANY evidence, no matter how thin they would have revealed it long ago.
You don’t have to know them, their actions reveal what’s in their heads.
“I’m not surprised, but do think it’s interesting, that one retracted story is being held up here as evidence that a crushing mountain of evidence of collusion is, in its entirety, false. Because, again, there is a consensus among the intelligrnce community that Russia intervened in favor of Trump, and a body of circumstantial evidence that Trump colluded, for which no one has offered a plausibly alternative explanation.”
First of all, there’s been lots of smoke (an incessant campaign of innuendo and slander) and now there’s fire (they admit they know its BS) and that’s why its being held up as dispositive.
You make 3 claims there for which you have no proof. First, where specifically is the “crushing mountain of evidence of collusion”? I’m sure that, that senior producer at CNN who no doubt is in trouble at CNN would love to see it.
Secondly, you’re referring to the ‘consensus’ among the deep state intelligence community that is attempting to initiate a political coup d’état?
Reuters – Dec 13, 2016, “The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, three American officials said on Monday.
While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA’s analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named.”
No conclusive evidence has since emerged “that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton”. That’s why Mueller is now looking into obstruction of justice charges, where saying you’re innocent is, ala Comey in prior cases, PROOF of obstruction of justice.
Thirdly, what yet to be discovered…“body of circumstantial evidence that Trump colluded” are you referring to? As a plausible explanation cannot be offered for an unproven, unsubstantiated accusation based solely on innuendo?
You’re demanding that we disprove a negative for which no evidence has been demonstrated.
But thank you for once again demonstrating just how gullible liberals are when offered what they want to believe.
Somebody Says:
June 27th, 2017 at 10:48 pm
…a body of circumstantial evidence that Trump colluded, for which no one has offered a plausibly alternative explanation. (I.e., why did Trump feel compelled to produce a letter from his law firm suggesting that, other than over $100 million, Trump had earned no income from Russian sources in the last 10 years—an oddly specific time frame, an enormous exception, and an odd run-around of his actual tax returns, in refutation of his own son’s statements about Russian investment money? Why not just…release the returns? I mean, I’d really like to know!)
* * *
Even allowing for the omitted information about the source of the $100M and the irrelevance of the tax returns (what, you think the leakers at the IRS don’t already KNOW exactly what’s in them?)
(1) Trump is somehow profiting from Russian investments so that means he must be colluding with Putin.
(2)Trump produces evidence indicating he IS NOT profiting from Russian investments.
(3) Obviously, he is guilty of collusion.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kafkatrapping
A sophistical and unfalsifiable form of argument that attempts to overcome an opponent by inducing a sense of guilt and using the opponent’s denial of guilt as further evidence of guilt.
From the NYPost link:
“CNN immediately caved after Scaramucci, a financier and frequent network guest, cried foul and threatened to take legal action, sources said Tuesday.”
Thinking maybe of the take-down of Gawker and Rolling Stone (although for slightly different reasons).
Lawfare: it’s not just for the Left anymore.
Ok, let me try something different. Imagine, for a moment, that the positions were reversed. Before Hillary Clinton’s election as president, news came out that Russia had hacked the election, and there were suggestions that Clinton herself had colluded. Clinton surrounded herself with officials who had a bad habit of lying under oath or on their Sf-86s about their ties to Russia. Clinton faced allegations of financial ties to Russia and refused to provide any evidence to the contrary–which should be easy but she refused to release her tax returns. Clinton released an ally’s classified information to Russia without the ally’s permission and planned to lift sanctions without any quid pro quo. Clinton faced a steady stream of reporting from an array of outlets about a growing web of entanglements and offered no coherent explanation for this consistent pattern of obfuscation. Clinton had a national security advisor who lied repeatedly about multiple streams of income from and trips on behalf of Russia (have you read the latest on his trip to Saudi in 2015?). And then, on top of that, Clinton fired the FBI director and suggested she might fire the special prosecutor assigned to investigate her ties to Russia.
Might you not be a little suspicious? This, I think, is what I find flabbergasting. Even if you assume that smoke does not automatically suggest fire, there’s such a consistent pattern of misbehavior with relation to Russia that it’s hard to believe you’re not in the least credulous about the denials. I mean, his attorney general, special advisor, and national security advisor all lied about their ties to Russia. This could be an absurd coincidence! But isn’t it at least worth checking out?
But the letter for his lawyers that seems to have convinced you as “evidence” is, to me, another example of obfuscation. Trump received over $100 million from Russian sources, but that’s dismissed as an exception; the ten-year period seems like an oddly specific bounding that doesn’t tell us anything about his activity beforehand, and the insistence on providing an extra layer between him and public scrutiny–when he could have easily presented primary source documents demonstrating for everyone to judge–all strongly suggest someone who absolutely does not want the public to know the truth about his finances.
But hey, if that’s proof enough for you, but the body of public reporting and the prevailing assessments by the intelligence community aren’t, then we know a bit more about how you evaluate your evidence.
Lichtblau was looking for another Pulitzer for doing damage to a Republican president by compromising national security. Remember the expose’ about how the intelligence agencies tracked terrorist financing? The terrorists changed methods then and thus denied the intel community of a useful tool. Well done, Eric!
To quote Dickens, “Drive them fast to their tomb.”
I see no one’s linked the Project Veritas/O’Keefe video, amazingly.
Well, here it is, and it’s a doozy. Almost feel sorry for the CNN producer they caught on camera.
http://www.veritaslive.com/06-26-2017/americanpravdacnn.html
He says the Whole “Russian collusion” narrative is “mostly bullshit,” avers that they have no evidence that Trump did anything criminal, and agrees that Trump has grounds for calling CNN’s coverage “a witch hunt.”
@Somebody
“Ok, let me try something different. Imagine, for a moment, that the positions were reversed.”
Ha ha ha. Too funny. There’s no need to “imagine” anything because truth is stranger than fiction! Here are the facts and they were ALL known before the election:
1. While SoS, Clinton surrounded herself with Clinton Foundation flunkies who filed four years of erroneous tax returns which hid millions upon millions of dollars in foreign donations which the foundation was not supposed to accept after she was appointed SoS. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/11/17/clinton-foundation-amends-4-years-taxes-admits-speech-fees-werent-donations/#565b197c136d
2. “According to a Reuters report, Tony Podesta was “among the high-profile lobbyists registered to represent organizations backing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.” Among these was the European Center, which paid Podesta $900,000 for his lobbying.
That’s not all: The busy Podesta Group also represented Uranium One, a uranium company acquired by the Russian government which received approval from Hillary Clinton’s State Department to mine for uranium in the U.S. and gave Russia twenty percent control of US uranium. The New York Times reported Uranium One’s chairman, Frank Guistra, made significant donations to the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for one speech from a Russian investment bank that has “links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.” Notably, Frank Giustra, the Clinton Foundation’s largest and most controversial donor, does not appear anywhere in Clinton’s “non-private” emails. It is possible that the emails of such key donors were automatically scrubbed to protect the Clinton Foundation.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/02/18/no-one-mentions-that-the-russian-trail-leads-to-democratic-lobbyists/#456066f83991
3. Why fire the head of the FBI when you can get your husband, the former POTUS, to “talk” with the Attorney General herself to do what you want to cover up the 33,000 government emails you illegally not only deleted, but then used a hammer and smashed to smithereens the platforms you were using to write them on, eh? Did I mention that some of those 33,000 emails were classified?
And apparently, none of these facts made you suspicious.
Yes, the truth about Hillary Clinton et. al. is stranger than fiction. And imagine (!) what would have happened if we hadn’t had an utterly corrupt DoJ under Obama and someone had prosecuted her for all this crap + Benghazi + everything else she did.
AesopFan wrote:
Can we agree that I resigned?
Wow Irene you zinged that Somebody so obviously. I bet it will be a long time before he comes up with another tutorial for those of us regulars here, lol. It was a thing of beauty.
Neo,
I love the Buffalo Springfield reference in the first line of your post.
Actually, I fully agree that those things are suspicious and warrant investigation! I’m satisfied with the Clinton email investigation, not because I think what she did was right, but rather because what she did is so widespread in DC that you couldn’t prosecute her without prosecuting everyone (and I realize that there are people here who would advocate that, but, practically, no one will). It’s a consequence of powerful people setting up rules for information handling that are sufficiently onerous that they themselves don’t want to abide by them, and then getting away with it when they’re caught. Clinton was risky, but Petreus actively handed over classified and was given a slap on the wrist. It’s a similar dynamic: a rich, powerful person breaks this rule and, at the end of the day, stays a rich powerful person. I’m not a fan of what she did but I think Comey’s decision was the right one; I’d rather we review the systemic issue that leads to people like Clinton and Petreus and the rest (every leaker from Obama or Trump’s administration) facing zero consequences when the same actions would ruin the rank-and-file.
The uranium thing is such a red herring that I don’t know where to start, but it’s possible that many of Trump’s actions that look nefarious now will turn out to be as banal as a pro forma approval for a sale accepted by multiple executive departments in the names of their secretaries. I suspect that a lot of what people find objectionable from DC stems more from an ignorance of what DC does and how it does it, and that significantly more would look fairly innocuous. (As a deep state Washington DC swamp insider, much of my concern about Trump stems from seeing how aberrant his behavior is from virtually any framework.)
And Lynch absolutely should be investigated for that conversation.
See? This is what I mean about tribalism being a sort of ur-motivator for politics. Saying “someone else from the other tribe did something wrong” is not a defense of someone from your tribe doing something wrong. It just means that they both did something wrong! I’m not wounded by this! My oath is to the Constitution, not to a party or a candidate, even though a liberal!
Today CNN jumped the Iranian Ayatollahs and Mullahs!!!
They decided to use sesame street characters to act on the trump presidency…
I have tried to point out how the left has always been devoid of original ideas and what i never pointed out was the real evidence of such. when in the clinch, when needing to control others, or manipulate, because they cant accept independent agency of others in the world (than themselves) to a huge paranoid sociopathic degree.
they always fall back to copying the monstrosities of hsitory hoping that the people wont notice that these are the SAME THINGS but for one was unfamiliar and strange (Ayatollah using a sesame street type parrot), and the other over 40 years of familiarity (sesame street and Elmo).
[for the record, i worked with sesame street in nyc for a business associated with entertainment production]
if anyone really wants a clear unarguable image that sums up who really did the changes to the US, then ignore the presidents, who are the pitchers and look to the teams that have the actual power… and who they represent and what they desire… NOT THEIR BLAME GAME…
their game, silly enough amounts to the same damn thing that cartoon villians logic applies to!!!
i am the perfect one to solve societies problems, but when i do, its always some other nefarious more powerful hidden force that i dont believe in (the invisable hand), until i need it to explain away what in normal mortals is imperfaction… drat it, if it wasnt for black spy, moriarty, capitalists, white men, colonialists, etc…
and as a collective we actually respond to that in a serious postitive familiar way that we never really realize we are all in thrall to comic book villians (unfamiliar)
HUGE EYE OPENER
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Party_divisions_and_control_of_the_house_and_senate.pdf/page1-800px-Party_divisions_and_control_of_the_house_and_senate.pdf.jpg
@Somebody
You ignore the fact that Clinton has been found doing all sorts of illegal things, whereas the only thing Trump has been found guilty of is nothing. Yet you continue to compare the two situations as though they were equivalent. They’re not. One is actual and the other is not just imaginary but malevolently produced to take down a president – a soft coup d’etat. So much for your professing fealty to our Constitution.
Now, tell me again, what exactly has President Trump done that is illegal. Be specific!
the rise Trump is the liberals’ doing, It was Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama who paved the way for Trump to be the President despite having so much flaws that went against lots of conventional wisdom on what a good president should be.
When Liberals ask how could anyone vote for someone with zero political experience like trump to be the president, it was the precedent of having Obama, someone with as little experience as Trump, as our president that had mentally prepared the public to accept an political Amateur. As the popular saying goes, “If Obama can do it anyone can do it”
When Liberals ask how could anyone vote for someone as morally corrupted as Trump to be the president, someone with so many affairs, divorces, bankruptcies, fraud accusations and what not, it was the precedent of having someone as morally corrupted as Bill Clinton to be our president that paved way for people to accept someone as corrupted as Trump.
So when you are angry that someone like Trump has become your president, just remember not too long ago you accepted someone just as amateurish and morally corrupted as your president.
@Irene re Somebody, liberals have ever no mirrors and pitifully short memories, did not Obama collude with Russians telling Med ved “tell Putin I’ ll have more flexibility after my election”
Did not Obama interfere in the Israeli election sending operatives and 300,000$ of our tax dollars to Israel to work to defeat Netayahu. Yes the usual Alinsky tactic Trump must be clean as the driven snow but we libs get a pass on anything !
Anonymous sources have become standard these days, and anonymous sources who are wrong–or liars–are pretty standard these days as well.
Feminists over the past 30 years perfected the always ready anonymous source that has the convenient point you need to dress up an article on rape, college sex, oppression, matress lifting…
no one calls them out on that, and so, nothing bad that is ignored do you get less of, and its all over..
they are all doing their bit for the cause.
and THATS what is being missed here.
neo goes to the, lets not pain them wiht THAT brush
and i keep telling you that they are following nechyeve and the chatechism.
these guys do waht they do, and if valued wil be moved and proteced, otherwise they are under the bus
and it wasnt a lawsuit
it was VIDEO of these bosses admitting they were putting up fake news openly..
no lawsuit needed..
i saw the video..
here
CNN says a clandestine video of one of the network’s producers criticizing its coverage of President Trump is legitimate, further fraying an already strained relationship between the news network and the White House.
The video taken by Project Veritas, the political group founded by the conservative provocateur James O’Keefe, shows a CNN producer from its medical coverage team commenting pointedly about the network’s coverage of the alleged ties between Trump and Russia.
When asked by an unrevealed videographer why CNN has been aggressive in covering the story, the producer, John Bonifield, replied: “Because it’s ratings.”
The video shows Bonifield being taped on several occasions, with his replies edited as a compilation.
Bonifield didn’t know that he was being taped, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly. The network is not disciplining Bonifield, and CNN editors are treating the comment as Bonifield’s personal thoughts expressed in a non-official capacity, the person said.
Somebody,
“Might you not be a little suspicious?”
Yes. IF there was supportive evidence. Which there is NOT in Trump’s case.
“his attorney general, special advisor, and national security advisor all lied about their ties to Russia.”
It is a bald faced lie that AG Sessions lied about any ties to Russia of which there are NONE.
To which special advisor are you referring?
Flynn did not lie about his ties to Russia. He was guilty of omission not commission. To LIE one must knowingly tell an untruth.
In addition, none of those individuals betrayed their country. A crime that Obama, both Clintons and numerous other democrats are guilty of…
They are all in on it.
Stop beating on Some Boy over there.
You know it isn’t a fair contest. Barely smarter than their messiah Hussein at work.
It’s like trying to win a battle of wits against a zombie by employing superman.
Conservatives entertaining themselves with “beating down clowns” is why Hussein and the Ctrl Left took over the nation to begin with.
Geoffrey,
Kushner’s the special advisor. Sessions clearly lied under oath, leading to his recusal. Comey confirmed that Sessions was already under investigation for another meeting that he had not disclosed. (The best part about Sessions is that he volunteered his lie, and never had to find himself in that position.) And Flynn…Flynn really, really lied, a lot, and is in big trouble as a result. I suspect you’ve never filled out an SF-86, but omission is explicitly commission on one of those. (This is the same problem Kushner faces; his meetings with Kislyak that he failed to disclose were later confirmed by the White House, which argued that the meetings were innocuous–but that’s beside the point when you failed to disclose them in the first place.)
But if you’re starting from the premise that Obama somehow betrayed the country, then it’s difficult to figure out where we even have discursive common ground, so I suspect there’s literally nothing I can say that you won’t view with hostile suspicion.
Irene: I’m not a lawyer, so I’m probably going to make a mess of the specifics. But as layman, three broad categories of crimes are apparent:
– fraud (ie, the Trump University)
– obstruction (ie, firing the guy investigating you for your ties to Russia and then repeatedly publicly explaining his firing as a means to relieve the investigation into your Russia ties)
– corruption (the emoluments issue)
I know he’s offered explanations for all of these, but they all seem so obviously true that it’s difficult to countenance a denial. Which I suppose is the mirror image of your side, which is that it is self-evidentially true that he didn’t do anything wrong (or that his decades-long pattern of shady, often illegal behavior is not sufficient evidence of character to raise your suspicion that the current round of accusations could carry some weight), and similarly self-evidentially true that Obama did something something something illegal. And I don’t know how to address that!
But I’d offer that the first step could be something like recognizing that Clinton was not my moral cross to bear (I was too young to vote for him either time) and that partisan politics and political beliefs are two separate things–that is, it doesn’t make me want to stop believing that single payer health care is a good thing because Clinton is morally reprehensible (Clinton != all liberal politics). Electoral politics might be a horse race devoid of all decency, but that doesn’t mean WE have to be devoid of decency–it’s possible to be a liberal and think that the Clintons are bad people, just as it’s possible to be a conservative and believe that rejecting an avalanche of accusations of wrongdoing against Trump as fake news is not the smartest way to address our ongoing political crisis.
The liberals are so hypnotized now that even when have the people who manufactured Russia Hysteria literally confess on Camera that they made it all up to dupe the gullible Trump haters for ratings they still wouldn’t believe it. Even if you have Obama on tape confessing his hatred for America and that he was a muslim Manchurian candidate with a mission to destroy America from within they still wouldn’t believe it, they would make excuse for him saying “he was forced to say those things, they were not true”
The liberals will probably defend themselves by using the Tu quoque tactic by pointing out that We blindly defending Trump with blatant crushing mountain of evidence showing Trump was colluding with Russia. First, a fabricated claim doesn’t get more believable just because you use a intense adjective to describe it. Second, I voted for Obama twice, i pledged no allegiance to anyone, I will turn against Trump as fast as i turned against Obama if there is a hint of evidence that he was planning to do America harm.
Hey Dave–would you be willing to talk more about your decisionmaking on voting for Obama (either or both times) and then Trump?
I mean it only from a position of genuine curiosity. I really don’t get it, beyond an abstract idea about “people who feel marginalized will vote for the anti-status quo candidate,” but you’re an actual person, and I’d appreciate a chance to hear it from you directly.
Somebody opines that *how can we go after Clinton’s obvious crimes when so many in DC operate the same way….(smile),* What kind of stupids do you take us for ????? That is the most incredible, incomprehensible, despicable, excuse I have ever heard in my life !!!! So according to Somebody liberal there is no way to ever restore the integrity and fairness to the DOJ, the IRS, CIA, and the rest of the loathsome bunch because they are inherently going to do illegal practices and keep doing them because NOBODY ever investigates or punishes them for their malfeasance. Words fail, I can only weep for my country. Thank you for the WINDOW Somebody, you do your bit as part of the problem and not attempting a solution.
My guess as to why CNN mounted such a vigorous retreat is because the target their attack was Anthony Scaramucci. While his listed net worth is only $80M, I suspect it is much higher.
Perhaps more importantly he ran SkyBridge Capital, a fund of hedge funds, for many years then selling it to join team Trump. SkyBridge also hosted the annual SALT conference which brought all of the hedge funds together for a show-and-tell. I believe that SALT meeting would move markets; as in “sell oil and buy tech.” Markets used to be moved by mutual funds, now it is hedge funds.
I recall a hot mic goof with Gov. Jerry Brown years ago, when he thought his speaker phone was muted on a conference call. He essentially admitted that he was (potentially?) under the thumb of the CA teachers unions.
IMHO the GOPe is controlled largely by hedge fund operators. And they are or were made or broken by A. Scaramucci. That would be a lot of power, if true. It would also explain why the GOPe cannot simply let the big health insurance co.’s crash and burn. SusanCollinsCare now has a massive taxpayer bailout of those companies. But Rand Paul is the bad guy ’cause he doesn’t think that is a good idea.
I voted for Obama because of the promise of universal healthcare instead we got a big corp handout. my mentor in first job got fired because some fat black woman filed a complaint of him fat shaming her when all he did was giving her a box of herbal weight loss teabags as gift he bought back from a visit to China. There are tons of reasons that i hate the democrats now, but democrats are pursuing identity politics and inciting hatred between different racial groups, my dad and uncle had seen it all played out during the cultural revolution, it had nothing to do with justice, black people are treated as equally as it can be living in the west but democrats are fueling this institutional racism conspiracy to make them hate white for votes.
Can liberals explain to me if Democratic party is the party for the poor, and their intentions were to redistribute the wealth from the greedy evil rich back to the poor, explain to me why 100% of Wall Street executives donate to the Dems? so these Wall Street executives are all saints who vote against their interest because they are so rich but virtuous and they want to give back to the poor they have stolen from? Give me a break, Dems raises tax to create virtuous illusion while have all these loophole set up so their friends don’t need to pay a dime of tax.
Dave, thank you, I really appreciate that.
I’m on board with Obamacare/Romneycare as a massive handout to insurance company shareholders. I am hopeful, though, that two things will come out of it: a broad consensus among the public that universal healthcare is, in fact, a good thing that we could actually have and work towards, and a consensus that single payer is the best way to achieve that.
I don’t have the same experience as you do with the whole “democrats inciting hatred” thing and am skeptical that your mentor’s experience really had anything to do with Obama, or that Trump will meaningfully achieve anything to fix that, but I really appreciate you sharing that with me.
Oh man, I don’t know that the Democrats have ever really been “the party of the poor.” The US has never really had one of those. The Democrats, just like the Republicans, represent a broad coalition of interests that stick together a little bit for political expediency and a little bit of a sense of affinity and shared interest, as incentivized by our first-past-the-post system.
But I get what you’re getting at: the Democrats absolutely should have positioned themselves as the champions of poor whites, and their failure to do so represents both a moral and electoral failure on their part. Emmett Rensin’s essay “The Smug Style in American Liberalism” made this case eloquently months before the election but it was already too late by that point, I think.
I suspect Clinton would have governed in as blandly a technocratic manner as Obama did and as I suspect Romney would have; which is to say, sustained a status quo that’s working ok for quite a few people but failing spectacularly for a large group. To the extent that it’s possible, I expect Trump will make that failure even more spectacular, which genuinely saddens me, because I genuinely care about the interests of my countrymen. I had a coworker–Sanders supporter–who briefly after the election said, verbatim, fuck all of them in their opioid crisis, they get what they deserve. And when I reminded him that these are the people who Sanders wanted to help, that he was being part of the problem, he sobered up, but that was his first, visceral reaction, and it represents a real problem.
@Somebody
First, I’ll just quickly reply to your favorable view of universal health care. Having had to deal with multiple cancer problems with my in-laws as residents in France and the UK vs. my 90-year old mom here in the US, I can tell you that universal healthcare is just a joke.
In England, the NHS stops treating cancer patients after the age of 75. Period. End of discussion. My step-mother-in-law was just left to die at home something like 60 days after they finally diagnosed her with cancer. She was in her late 70s when the cancer started, but it went undiagnosed and obviously untreated. This is NHS policy.
In France, they refuse to even perform blood tests for cancer for the elderly and kept my mother-in-law on antibiotics for 18 months telling her she had a urinary tract infection. Three months before she died, my husband was told she had cancer and had only a few months to live and they were so sad./sarc We had already figured out she had cancer months before the doctors, but they wouldn’t do anything. My oncologist told me if my mother-in-law could travel to the US, he would treat her. Unfortunately, by that time she was too weak. And so she also died very prematurely due to lack of treatment.
Now, my mom was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 83 here in the US. She was whisked into surgery 48 hours later and then had radiation and that was then followed up with whatever that 5-year medication is. She’s 90, in remission, still works, is forever active and we are blessed that she was not turned down for treatment because of her age.
Universal healthcare always causes rationing. Always. You would not have a favorable view of it if you’d ever dealt with it. Yeah, life is unfair. Some people will always have more money, more options, better health care, etc. But at least here we don’t have bureaucrats giving blanket orders that can sentence you to a very premature death.
Regarding your examples of “crime”:
1. Alan Dershowitz, liberal Harvard professor emeritus, has been unequivocally clear that POTUS had the right to fire Comey. There’s just no crime in that. I know you’re all caught up in the “Muh Russia” stuff, but you might want to consider that – really – it’s just nonsense that’s been spun by political operatives because if all these damn leakers haven’t leaked anything in the last year about Russia, it’s because it ain’t there. And Comey deserved to be fired for any number of reasons. What POTUS says publicly and privately about his reasons may be two different things, but none of that is relevant. He could fire him for wearing the wrong colored tie.
2. Emoluments – another allegation by liberal activists. “According to constitutional experts, the main hurdle for all three of these suits is whether the plaintiffs have standing to sue. University of Iowa law professor Andy Grewal tells the ABA Journal that “all three cases have serious standing problems” and that “the New York case seems stronger, but only because the other two seem so weak.”” And that’s the very liberal ABA Journal. Obviously, if you don’t even have standing to sue, this is just another attempted witch hunt trying to slow down the Trump agenda. http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/emoluments_clause_lawsuits_against_donald_trump_face_uphill_battle
3. Trump U – It was a negotiated settlement, from what I understand. I won’t comment further as the litigation was cut short due to Trump’s election.
Irene,
All of that sounds terrible, and I’m sorry you had to experience it. I’m not a health care policy expert, and I don’t pretend either to have all the answers to every possible problem or that universal health care, in any of its various permutations, would solve any problem. I do know that there are probably horror stories under universal care and under our system; I also know that we spend more per capita than either of those two countries and enjoy lower health care outcomes, which suggests we could cut costs while also enjoying higher outcomes. My point in this wasn’t to build a case that convinced you on all counts, but to offer an explanation for why someone could support universal health care without ill intent. We also have rationing in our system, in effect, we just pay more for it and get less for it.
Now: I don’t really care what Dershowitz has to say. if the appeal is to authority, then you could just as easily appeal to an authority like Comey or Mueller who seem to think there’s a case that’s at least worth investigating. OF COURSE the president is empowered to fire the FBI director, but that doesn’t preclude a criminal intent to obstruct justice or tamper with witness testimony (as is probably the case with his comments on the Comey tapes as a means to manipulate Comey’s testimony). I feel like this is pretty well established–isn’t this exactly what led to Nixon’s resignation? Mueller isn’t going to bring criminal charges, but he can make a case that would be adjudicated by the House on the question of obstruction as a high crime.
I think you’re conflating the issue of standing with the issue of guilt. Plaintiff who lack standing simply fail to meet a legal criterion to bring a suit; it has no bearing on whether an actual crime was committed. That is, I think you’re mistaking a procedural question about a plaintiff’s legal right to sue–the weak case–for the question of guilt on Trump’s part.
And again, I’m not a lawyer, but Trump’s fraud just with regards to Trump U seems so blatant that it’s really difficult to countenance a denial as anything but partisan hackery.
Also, not sure if you were aware, but the “muh x” formulation has its origins in racist anti-black Neo-Nazi discourse, i.e., “muh dick.” I don’t mean that as an example, I mean that’s literally the origin of the phrase.
Dear Somebody who is in favor of universal insurance and single payer (aka government paid) health care.
Doesn’t work any better than market-based insurance and care, and sometimes is considerably worse.
Evidence: Veterans’ Administration.
I mean, I’m not really sure how you can say “it doesn’t work any better” when we have fairly clear evidence of single payer systems in most industrial countries that cost less per capital and produce better health care outcomes. But yes, it is possible that a single payer system would be poorly run and produce bad outcomes. I’m generally not a fan of, say, the NHS, where the entire health care industry is covered by a single government entity.
I’m a fan of France’s mixed system, which spends about 11-12% of GDP on healthcare vs our 17-18% but produces better outcomes, Irene’s personally tragic experience with the system notwithstanding. So from a pure efficiency view, I’d like to jettison our system, which is predicated on huge distortions produced by a) subsidies through tax breaks and b) the madness of our ER system, among other things.
Efficiency aside, I also believe that a single payer system woupd generate more aggregate freedom than our current system does.
Leftists claimed that homosexual marriage was for equal rights too. Maybe even some of these f ups even believed it.
The Leftists obey their Authority, their Messiah, and their god. While conservatives are still fighting over who is Christian.
The Left has no hesitation and no doubt when obeying their orders. Meanwhile Republicans and conservatives have to figure out who to obey, Alt Right ,Trum, or Republican E.
When I told people that when the Left gets told to smash their heads in, it won’t matter if they are neighbors, family, friends, or anything else.
People found it hard to believe and easier to believe it was crazy.
Now they’re the crazy ones, suffering beat downs from Leftists online and offline, as they scream to god “Why do they hate us”.
People have told you why, it just sounded crazy in 2008, 2012, but in 2013 it started sounding not so crazy.
Second, I voted for Obama twice, i pledged no allegiance to anyone,
Talk about falling for the con and then rationalizing it as not pledging allegiance. They don’t really need your allegiance when they have power you gave them.
All of that sounds terrible, and I’m sorry you had to experience it.
It’s that fake crocodile tears like you see from Hussein and HRC.
They’re fooling you all again.
Democrats claiming to be the victims for losing the election due to Russia hacking reminds me of the following:
Mafia boss: I deserve to have all the charges against me dropped.
Judge: you were allegedly involved in dozens of murders and many counts of drug trafficking, what makes you think you deserve to have all the charges dropped
Mafia boss: police were able to arrest me due to Tips and evidence they had received from my rivalries, FBI was colluding with other mafia families against me, all evidence were illegally obtained and I am a victim of a conspiracy, I deserve to be exonerated from all accusations
Somebody has demonstrated why it’s impossible to have a rational discussion with a lefty. (He’s not a liberal — he’s demonstrated that he’s not in favor of liberty, among other things.)
Not only does he have his own set of facts, c.f. the “disproportionate” shooting of blacks by cops, or American healthcare outcomes, but when he doesn’t have any facts, he thinks his baseless opinions count as facts.
He’s not a lawyer, but he knows more about “obstruction” and “emoluments” than Alan Dershowitz.
He’s not an accountant, but he knows there must be something buried in Trump’s tax returns that’s not revealed in Trump’s multiple multi-hundred page financial disclosure forms which are available ON-LINE!
He’s not a financial crimes expert, but he knows that taking a $141 million bribe to let some Russians buy 20% of the US uranium capacity is just a red herring.
He’s not a health care expert, but he knows more about how great national health systems are than people who’ve actually dealt with them.
He’s not an international affairs expert, but he knows the Russians would prefer to have a guy in the White House they know virtually nothing about, who is going around proclaiming he will build up the US military and put America first, to a woman they know is a pushover (see Reset Button) and they already have in their pocket (see above-mentioned bribe).
An old expression I learned from my father — “no matter how you slice it, it’s still baloney.”
Actually, I am an expert in one of those things, but it’s not relevant to my political beliefs and you wouldn’t really care if I made the claim, since there’s no way to verify, so it’s not really important, but I did want you to know that I know SOME things about some things. But the point of this exercise was to try to explain how a person could reasonably believe the things a liberal believes. Do you really think that throwing Dershowitz would really mean anything? “Oh man, if Alan Dershowitz thinks Trump didn’t commit obstruction, then I must be wrong about the top marginal tax rate too!” That’s not really how any of this works.
This is a major problem with liberal, because you are an expert of one thing you believe you are an expert on everything else.
Liberals are basically left wing racists. They believe a certain group of people are forever inferior than them and they need to protect them for eternity to show the world that they are compassionate people. their goal is to show how virtuous they are, whether their actions had actually helped anyone or even had caused major catastrophe due to a lack of foresight is not their concerns.
All conservatives suggest is let Black community grow up, stop treating them like children, be frank with them about their problems so they can learn from them, improve themselves, grow beyond their weaknesses. Gee, lowering the passing standards to manufacture higher graduation rate has accomplished nothing but producing HS graduates who can’t read their diplomat, many of this kid were taking middle school level algebra as seniors in HS, of course they are going to have problems finding good jobs down the road.
Conservatives’ idea is black people are just as smart as Asian kids and their is no reason black kids can’t perform as well as Asian kids in school, all they need is a little push and harder Curriculum and teachers who care more about teaching black kids to prepare for college and beyond than just bumping up graduating rate with any means possible.
Liberals basically believe black people will never be as good student as other races of people so why bother. Just lower the standards and let everyone graduate to make themselves feel better and get it over with. Democrats are like spoiling parents who accomplish nothing but make their children losers.
Actually, I don’t claim to be an expert on anything (except the one thing that I’m an expert on)! I think you’re mistaking what I tried to do here–offer a good faith explanation of why a liberal could believe what he believes, in the interest of reducing the apparent divide within this country–for an attempt to convince you of something. While ideally I WOULD convince someone of something, blog comments are probably the single worst medium outside of youtube comments sections for having a meaningful, paradigm-shifting conversation.
But man, I cannot even begin to engage with the rest of that. I don’t even know where to start! Like, if you accused me of being the Pope, would it be sufficient for me to just assert that I’m not the Pope? If you believe something that crazy, what possible evidence could I provide to reduce your craziness?
Okay, Somebody, since by your own admission you’re not a lawyer, you’re not an accountant, you’re not a health care expert, then obviously you think you are an expert on international affairs.
So please, if you will, explain to me why the Russians would prefer Trump as opposed to Clinton? Extra credit will be given if you separate facts, if any, from opinion.
My area of expertise is actually on a different part of the world. Did you know that the reason the Emirs of Abu Dhabi pass royal succession through brothers instead of sons has to do with the time that the UAE
Sorry,clicked the wrong spot.
…that the UAE founder’s mom made her sons touch her boob? It’s a true story.
There you go again! Assert that the Russians preferred Trump, then back out of defending your claim by saying you’re not an expert. How kew-ll is that!
Gertrude Bell would never do that!
Gertrude Bell was responsible for Iraq’s modern borders. The person you’re thinking of is Salama bint Butti, mother of Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayyan, founder of the UAE.
And look, i don’t have and don’t claim any special insight into Russian decision making. All I can talk about is the reported consensus assessment of our intelligence community. If you assume, a priori, that they are lying to undermine Trump because they said something that could be interpreted as critical of Trump, then I’m not really sure how to continue taking to you. (We were just having a fun conversation in another thread about confirmation bias.)
Some conjectural possibilities: maybe the Russians thought Clinton would be too hawkish towards them. Maybe they hate women. Maybe Trump’s clownishness amused them. Maybe the dossier is true and he’s a compromised asset if Russian intelligence. I don’t know! But I suspect we’ll find out pretty soon what Paul Manafort did with all that laundered Russian money!
The only thing Some Boy is an expert is in being a fanatical priest of their messiah Hussein. Faith is what they are experts on.