The latest media hysteria about Trump
You can read about it here as well as here and here.
From the latter:
As Trump told Stephanopoulos, there is nothing wrong with listening to information that anyone, foreign or domestic, might have that is relevant to a presidential candidate. But what is blindingly obvious, yet absent from every Democratic Party news account feigning horror at the ABC interview, is that the Hillary Clinton campaign didn’t just receive “foreign dirt” on the Trump campaign. It paid for foreign sources to fabricate lies about Trump, which it then disseminated to the press. Listen to “foreign dirt”? The Clinton campaign paid for it!
This is just one more example of why no sensible person takes “news” sources like the Washington Post seriously.
Ah, but many people must not be sensible then, and I seem to know an awful lot of them.
I sometimes feel I ought to write something about every single brouhaha that takes center stage for a day and then fades away. And sometimes I do add my 2 cents into the mix. But sometimes I just shrug and think that, unless I have something at least somewhat clever or insightful to contribute, why bother? Because the repetitiveness and the trivia of it all wearies me.
And yet these things do matter. I don’t dismiss them, because the media still affects and influences a great many people. Most people are not new junkies. Most people just read headlines or the first paragraph of a story, or listen to it for a moment or two with half an ear while double-tasking. The MSM knows that, and they know that they can influence people by the steady drumbeat of negative news and analysis. And they do.
Some intrepid soul really needs to compile a list for the record of all the ‘major’ controversies of the one day varieties many of which were flat out wrong of the Trump presidency. Starting with the bust removal on the very first day (an absolutely perfect indicator of what was to come).
We live in a land of sheep who are mostly politically tone-deaf or too busy cud-chewing to hear.
Thus, I am increasingly convinced there are “tide(s) in the affairs of men” that cannot be withstood by mere human efforts, no matter how great the try.
Christianity and the Enlightenment were incoming tides.
For the past 100 years we have seen an outgoing tide building, which is now peaking at sufficient strength to pull most everything out to the deepest depths for drowning.
You may consider these tides as between good and evil, or between yin and yang.
Where are the consequences for the mass media’s incessant lies? None of course, there’s no longer a moral consensus supporting a consequential feedback mechanism.
And they are lies, they know that they’re spreading untruths.
As for freedom of speech, these are not individuals. These are ideological propaganda outlets operating in a seditious conspiracy. Ideologues that have seized control of nearly all of society’s informational inputs. One’s that are using constitutional guarantees to destroy the very basis of those constitutional guarantees. And to accept it is to turn allegiance to the constitution into a suicide pact.
If I were Trump, the last person I’d let even step in the Oval office or question me would be political hack and Clinton apparatchik George Stephanopoulos.
I knew the news media had been terribly dishonest and unfair to conservatives and Republicans for over 16 years, but I had no idea that they had barely begun their descent into rank partisanship and anti-Americanism. Unfortunately, instead of slowing the descent, they seem to be accelerating into the abyss.
During the campaign I repeatedly said, in so many words, that the election would be a ‘911’ moment for the country, and many folks accused me of being overly dramatic. Little did I know then that, if anything, I was being ‘underly’ dramatic, and that every subsequent election would contain the same, or even greater, threat to our nation.
This year and next we’ll learn the truth in the Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times.”
Snow on Pine,
Perhaps Trump is following that ancient aphorism; “keep your friends close and your enemies… even closer”
Irv,
“If something cannot go on forever, it will [eventually] stop.” Herbert Stein
To paraphrase John F. Kennedy; Those who make peaceful resolution impossible… will make violent resolution inevitable. That is the path that the Left is forcing us down.
Leftists Declare Fundamental Moral Questions Beyond Debate
“I think there’s some issues that have such moral clarity that we have as a society decided that the other side is not acceptable. I believe that for all of these issues, they are not issues that there is a fair other side.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) discussing the right to abortion at any point.
If Trump cured cancer, the MSM and Dems would proclaim he was purposely putting oncologists and cancer centers out of business. Such a cruel man, ya know. It is to weep.
I saw on FOX twice that the Dems said it is a NO NO to receive info from a foreign source but OK to solicit info, as did Hillary. They said it with straight faces.
I think that Trump baited GS and the Dems and they swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Their attacks on Trump over his comment allowed some Rep and Trump to point out what Hillary did concerning Fusion dossier.
I just heard the talking point from Andrew McCabe’s lips excerpted on Fox. In his opinion, it is OK for U.S. politicians to receive oppo info. from foreign sources, as long they are not foreign government sources. Christopher Steele was retired from British gov. service when Hillary used his services.
Ridiculous of course, but there it is. For example, does anyone know if Chris Steele had done any contractor work for MI6 after his retirement? If yes, then he was both retired and (intermittently perhaps) a British gov. employee.
“I sometimes feel I ought to write something about every single brouhaha that takes center stage for a day and then fades away. And sometimes I do add my 2 cents into the mix. But sometimes I just shrug and think that, unless I have something at least somewhat clever or insightful to contribute, why bother?” — Neo
I like the Power Lines “headlines” for posts they think are interesting, but don’t want to write about.
Of course, that adds another couple hours of reading to my day, but still —
if the commentariat here is allowed fisking privileges on something similar, we can undoubtedly churn the water, even if you just throw out the bait.
Another failure of the PC-Klan to be intellectually honest. Loud about criticizing what Trump says, without criticizing what Clinton actually did.
Lots of illegal actions by top intel folk, still no indictments.
Plus Clinton/DOJ/FBI/GPS Fusion coordinated with the Australian govt, and it looks like the Italians too, in addition to the British govt.
So let me get this straight.
An enemy government approached the Trump campaign, informing them of their effort to hurt America by electing Donald Trump POTUS. The Trump Campaign does not report this illegal campaign contribution to the FBI.
The enemy commits a robbery and the Trump campaign still does not report what they know. Another enemy, Wikileaks, helps distribute the stolen goods. Just as a reminder, Wikileaks supported the Taliban by releasing the names of Taliban “rats”. Trump goes around saying he loves these Taliban supporters, and later informs us of his hatred of “rats.”
In contrast, Hillary Clinton does not receive a campaign contribution from an enemy. Rather, she pays a former officer of a US ally to dig up the truth about Trump’s relationship with the enemy.
They ally finds what is said above: the enemy is trying to help Trump and Trump knows it. He reveals boatloads of contacts while Trump lies and says there are none. He reveals the existence of the Trump Tower project while Trump lies by saying there are no deals in the works.
So Trump accepts contributions from the enemy while Clinton pays an ally to reveal the fact that Trump accepted contributions from the enemy.
Yet somehow you are outraged by the latter, but not the former.
“ally”
Manju – That is the silliest bunch of half-truths and outright lies I’ve ever read. I thought about refuting your ‘facts’ one at a time and then decided it wasn’t worth my time. Unlike Neo, anyone who has a mind like that can’t be changed by facts.
The entire case for the occurrence of “Russian hacking” of the DNC server obviously rests on whatever evidence there is proving:
# 1 That the DNC servers were actually “hacked” and
# 2 That it was the “Russians” who did the hacking.
From what I have read, the MSM has very carefully avoided pointing out that the only evidence for the charge that the Russians did, indeed, “hack” the DNC’s server—or that it was even “hacked”—as opposed to the material that ended up being given to Wikileaks having been downloaded on a thumb-drive by some DNC insider, and walked out the doors of the DNC—is the assertion that this “Russian hacking” happened made by a private computer consulting firm hired by the DNC named “CrowdStrike.”
According to reports—and astonishingly—the FBI and its computer forensic experts have never actually examined the DNC servers at issue, but reportedly actually signed an agreement with the DNC, accepting CrowdStrike’s word for the “fact” that the DNC server was, indeed, “hacked,” and that it was the Russians who hacked it.
Lawyers for Roger Stone—one of the peripheral Trump associates who is being prosecuted by Mueller—made a court filing demanding to see and examine the “evidence” that the prosecution has for the Russian hacking of the DNC servers.
Incredibly, the government prosecutor’s admission was that, not only did the FBI not ever examine the DNC servers, but that they never actually saw any final analysis/report from CrowdStrike making this assertion.
FBI officials were only permitted to see a “redacted draft” of what was supposed to be CrowdStrike’s “final report,” which this prosecution filing said was never produced for their inspection.
It seems to me that extracting this fundamental assertion from the prosecution’s JENGA-like case should mean that the prosecution’s entire case collapses, as should every other case founded on the “reality” of this central and fundamental assertion.
See Sundance’s analysis here at https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/06/15/doj-admits-fbi-never-saw-crowdstrike-report-on-dnc-russian-hacking-claim/#more-165093
P.S. You might remember that, in testimony before Congress Comey–when asked about what proof there was of this Russian hacking–just breezily said that this assertion was certified to by a “highly respected private company,” and then moved on.
See https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/03/20/fix-is-in-comey-praised-dnc-hired-cybersecurity-firm-even-after-botched-report/
NPR this Saturday morning waxed irate about the President’s statement, and didn’t say a damn thing about Hillary’s actual behavior in soliciting dirt from foreign sources – all of which is completely predictable. So why pretend that this gives the President or Fox some opening re Hillary hypocrisy? That is just spinning a rather stupid unforced mistake that frankly irritates me. Sometimes it seems as though Trump has no idea how such things dismay his supporters, and assumes they have cast-iron nerves he does. Some of us indeed have nearly as steady nerves, but wish we could use them more on offense than on defense, mopping up sloppy mistakes.
NPR has good production values, but they’ve always been a scandal. Keep in mind that from 1975 to 1983 their president was Frank Mankiewicz, whose previous position of note had been as George McGovern‘s campaign manager. The liberal mentality is such that they fancy they are the proprietors of every kind of public forum and institution. Well, we had control of Congress as well as the Presidency from 2003 to 2006. What happened to NPR during those years? Nothing.
#fredocons
As always, Andrew McCarthy goes down the road of sanity between the hyperpartisan bifurcated roadways.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/foreign-interference-trump-comments-democrat-hypocrisy/
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/06/13/foreign-oppo-info-trump-might-listen-for-free-to-what-hillary-desperately-sought-and-paid-for/
“The Russians have never had it so easy. If we assume they were indeed behind efforts to shop Hillary’s emails to the Trump campaign — and there are significant reasons to doubt that — they tried a number of times and never got a bite from Trump. On the other hand, Fusion’s contract spy Christopher Steele, as we are to understand it, showed up on Hillary’s dime eager to write down whatever Russians wanted to feed him about Trump, and pump it into the U.S. government and the U.S. election. Hillary cronies Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer were trailing around taking notes on the same Russian dezinformatsiya circuit, for good measure.”
I love Manju — he keeps me up to date on what’s happening in the Bizarro universe!
Manju, we’ll be talking soon across the Veil. You need to prepare.
Yammer and Manju; the ying and yang of the weird wild web.