Can we call CNN “faux news” now?
Well, it’s not as alliterative as saying it about Fox News. But check this out.
Recall as you read it that CNN claimed earlier today that Trump had been briefed by the intelligence community on memos alleging that the Trump campaign had communicated with Russia about damaging information the Russians had against him. The implication by CNN was that the allegations might indeed be true, although unsubstantiated as yet (and, if true, would certainly be important), and that that’s why the intelligence community had bothered to do the briefing.
Checking just now on the CNN story (which has been updated since earlier today), it still makes claims such as this:
The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump…
Some of the memos were circulating as far back as last summer. What has changed since then is that US intelligence agencies have now checked out the former British intelligence operative and his vast network throughout Europe and find him and his sources to be credible enough to include some of the information in the presentations to the President and President-elect a few days ago.
On the same day that the President-elect was briefed by the intelligence community, the top four Congressional leaders, and chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees — the so-called “Gang of Eight” — were also provided a summary of the memos regarding Mr. Trump, according to law enforcement, intelligence and administration sources.
The two-page summary was written without the detailed specifics and information about sources and methods included in the memos by the former British intelligence official. That said, the synopsis was considered so sensitive it was not included in the classified report about Russian hacking that was more widely distributed, but rather in an annex only shared at the most senior levels of the government: President Obama, the President-elect, and the eight Congressional leaders.
Sounds very much as though they are saying that these allegations were both very serious and very credible, and that Trump was told in some detail about them.
But—well—not exactly, according to another “senior official” who has spoken to NBC news [emphasis mine[:
While multiple officials say the summary [of the charges against Trump] was included in the material prepared for the briefers, the senior official told NBC News that the briefing was oral and no actual documents were left with the Trump team in New York. During the briefing, the president-elect was not briefed on the contents of the summary .
“Intel and law enforcement officials agree that none of the investigations have found any conclusive or direct link between Trump and the Russian government period,” the senior official said.
According to the senior official, the two-page summary about the unsubstantiated material made available to the briefers was to provide context, should they need it, to draw the distinction for Trump between analyzed intelligence and unvetted “disinformation.”
The briefers also had available to them unvetted “disinformation” about the Clinton Foundation, although that was not orally shared with Trump.
Nor with us.
Now, of course, it might be NBC and its informant “senior official” who’ve gotten it wrong. In a contest between the veracity of CNN or NBC I really don’t know which I’d choose; maybe “neither”?
[Hat tip: Ace.]
Well… if McCain is in the loop itis automatically suspect IMO.
The most amazing response I have seen is Glen Greenwald’s piece at The Intercept:The Deep State Goes to War with President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer
Glenn is the former Guardian reporter who started his own news outlet – The Intercept – after working with Snowden to publish his material about the NSA snooping. A Guardianista’s Guardianista, yet he takes a sledgehammer to the Deep State, the Democrats and press that is pushing the story. Of course he wants to see Trump opposed at every step by legitimate means but he is English and is not still so upset by Trump’s victory that he has lost all sense of proportion. I submit that is exactly what is happening to our Democratic friends. Most of them still seem to be caught in that wail of desperation and denial with which the studio audience on The View greeted Michael Moore’s warning that Trump was going to win. Since the discussion here I read the transcripts of Streep’s remarks and found I felt a bit sorry for her because it is obvious she is so sincerely caught up in the Hollywood echo chamber.
Sure was a strategic mistake for Democrats to birth the “fake news” theme just as Trump and Republicans are taking over. Now no one knows what to believe, which will make it much harder to damage Trump with stories that may or may not be true.
One thing that’s never made sense is the idea that the Russians were scheming to help Trump. As Trump pointed out in his news conference yesterday, no sane person believes that Hillary would have been a bigger threat to the Russians. That being the case, who’s to say the Russians didn’t put out false information to taint President-Elect Trump? The most logical assumption, IMO, is that the Russians would want to weaken the U.S. president, no matter who he or she is.
CW:
True, Putin wouldn’t want someone competent as an opponent; knee-cap or discredit both, a win-win strategy.
CNN is very good at what it actually says on TV, but sometimes it is the way it is presented that shows the real bias. CNN International was covering te Sessions hearing and broke it off just as one woman seeemed to start saying something positive about Sessions. Suddenly, there was a Breaking News interruption talking about additional intelligence info that had been provided to Trump. They then had two commenters plus Carl Bernstein discussing the matter. The Sessions hearing was turned off. In the next segment, they had a larger group of people to discuss the “new” intelligence.
There was no need to make this whole thing Breaking News, and if it was truly breaking, how did they get so many commenters together so quickly. Did they vet these people to see whether they were truly informed about what was actually happening or do they simply have a bunch of spin doctors sitting backstage that the put before the cameras when they need something to cover up their own lack of solid reporting.
Sometimes bias is not reflected in exactly what Wolf Blitzer says. It has a lot more to do with what is mentioned vs what is not covered. It has to do with the amount of airtime given a topic. It has to do with the number of informed people on screen vs the number of spin doctors.
One thing we should not forget is that for much of the world’s population CNN International is the face of America presented to the world and few foreigners spend much time online trying to get the other sides of stories. I wish they could know that people like Neo exist who do lots of research and consider all sides of issues and finally come to to a more conservative position than the typical CNN blabberer.
OM has it right.
Standing in putin’s shoes, this is very much what he’d want – something that is not too “hot”, but something that can distract and discredit, providing long term seeds of distrust of the public in their own system and leaders.
Gives him plenty of leeway to take action elsewhere and it weakens our country.
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The other aspect is that, despite all the cheers for trump and jeers for the MSM in these comments sections, it seems lost that trump is really the one on the receiving end of his own b.s. fake information tactics.
Sure, the msm has been on the attack on the GOP for some time with hyped up and exaggerated claims. Trump, in his campaign, had upped the ante by being even more outlandish.
Did everyone suddenly forget how he claimed Cruz’s father was involved in the JFK shooting? Anyone paying attention last year can probably come up with a dozen more examples.
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The fact that trump at first tried to deny the possibility of russian hacking specifically opens him up for this kind of attack.
It would have cost him very little to say that he wants this fully investigated and that he would take any proof of russian involvement as a serious threat into his presidency, but as far as he is concerned he won fair and square.
It seems that the trump camp is overly concerned about the “question” of their “legitimacy”, so even something like this cannot be countenanced. IMHO, trump has FAR less to worry about than GWB in 2000.
On the other hand, perhaps he’d have believed it if it was in the national enquirer. /sk
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So now we are to the point where even Neo is asking what to believe, as so much is happening at once and nobody has any credibility.
She’s not the only one.
IOW, Chaos is brewing.
The Trump haters are going off into the deep end. For the first time in my Facebook life, I “defriended” a liberal friend of mine. she’s OK in person but her facebook taunts and snark and smugness are now too much for me to bear. I just don’t need that mean-spirited crap in my life.
At the end of the day this is the result of Trump’s clumsiness in public relations and management. Throughout the campaign a more “presidential” Trump was promised. False hope spread with conservatives with many of the Cabinet nominees. The Russian cyber adventures were well known before the election as were Trump’s odd pronouncements on Putin. It would have been a simple matter to take the daily intelligence briefings, wag a disparaging finger at the Russians for mucking about in our affairs and move on.
But Trump couldn’t do these simple things and he opened the door. Remember this is the same guy who couldn’t refrain from criticizing his successor in “The Apprentice” Arnold Schwartzenegger. Even though Trump remains “Executive Producer” of the show!
Now even sober reporters on the wall street journal are talking about Trump’s “vast business holdings” and how they cannot be easily disposed of. I took a look at the Trump organization’s web site and found to my surprise they only had nine hotels with couple of more small hotels at golf courses. This is less than many boutique hotel chains and much less well known that high end chains like the St.Regis or Intercontinental. It’s all bluff and the risk to all involved is when and how it collapses.
The Sordid History of the Firm Behind the Trump-Russia Dossier
Meet Fusion GPS
http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-sordid-history-of-the-firm-behind-the-trump-russia-dossier/article/2006254#!
and for fun…
Let’s Review: Peegate
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/5minute_arguments/lets_review_peegate.php
DirtyJobsGuy
the evil man is a brand builder and rents his name, his holdings are not vast… in fact, in many ways, they are not diversified enough. however, others are held in name in other countries and not directly because many countries do not allow foreigners to own property, but need proxies of sorts who actually own things in concert
funny, but over time, we are going to find out he isnt what he has been painted like…
confession: i have met him, and his current wife and worked with people who know him. as i have also worked or been with the hearst daughters, know the hilton family, and even the clinton family (but not the clintons themselves), as well as Rhodes, and a few others. one of the things that happens when your a top photog even for a short while, is you end up hanging out with the people and get to comare the media image with the person, and its very interesting… some are what they seem, others are the opposite, and still others are NOTHING llike their press.
you think the world of sensitive big businessmen and politicians and such that work with him, and so on, would work with him if the press was valid?
you think george soros press was valid?
was obama press valid?
did the press even bother to tell you what is in valierie jarrets wikipedia entry?
heck, is the press being valid when they paint a picture of washington as a racist slaveholder, who wanted a white supremicist country?
so why would press who are progressives want you to have an honest view of someone who opposes their ideas of population control and economic theft through state force?
by the way, anyone but me paying attention to the troops just moved to lituania? the tanks moved to ukraine (2500 assorted vehicles)… the move of the chinese in the strait of taiwan, their bombers buzzing the spratlies, and the recent appointee saying that we will not let them?
after all, obama ignored them and allowed them to build bases and all that, and now, how do you get them off the lands that are japanese? and threaten world shipping and all of the countries in that area, espcially japan, philipeans, etc
noting can start with one of their own in office
and ic an guarantee no one is going to blame obama for letting that all get built up rather than “nip it in the bud”…
there is a lot more, but i have posted too much already
Did everyone suddenly forget how he claimed Cruz’s father was involved in the JFK shooting? Anyone paying attention last year can probably come up with a dozen more examples.
that is NOT what he said, that is what the MSM press said.
cruz father was giving out pamphlets on that day that that man who he didnt know later would do anything, was also giving out and there are photos of that…
the dirty part wasnt that he was there with cruz, but that by expanding it to the jfk thing, you didnt read what was on the pamplets!!!!
here is a SLATE article Nov. 15 2013 about it before trump mentioned that one of the people giving them out was guess who
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/11/15/jfk_assassination_flyer_distributed_in_dallas_by_edwin_walker_s_group_before.html
his flyer, around 5,000 copies of which were distributed around Dallas in the days before President Kennedy’s November 22, 1963 visit, accused Kennedy of a range of offenses, from being “lax” on Communism, to “appointing anti-Christians to Federal office,” to lying to the American people about his personal life.
the flyers were the important thing NOT the assasination
General Edwin A. Walker violated the Hatch Act. After the assassination, Walker’s organization was briefly under suspicion, and the Warren Commission investigation tracked these flyers to Walker’s aide Robert Surrey. Surrey had overseen the distribution of the sheets in the days prior to JFK’s arrival; members of Walker’s organization, acting on his behalf, placed them under windshield wipers and in newspaper racks.
Walker’s group was exonerated of involvement with the assassination, but the Warren Commission did turn up a bizarre coincidence. On April 10, 1963, Walker was sitting at his desk in his home study when a bullet fired from outside the house narrowly missed his head. According to Marina Oswald’s testimony, which the Commission found convincing, Lee Harvey Oswald had carefully planned and executed this attempted murder, months before his November assassination of the President. (The Warren Commission’s examination of that evidence is here.)
here is a link to a copy of the flyer that was being given out by the john birch society people that day
http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_vault/2013/11/15/TreasonFlyer.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg
but once they put the bombast on it as a link to jfk assination, it was no longer something to look at!!!
no one actually linked cruz dad to the assination, it was only about the pamplets before that..
go ahead and dig..
the devil is in the details…
Art:
Selective memory on Trump and Cruz’s father. Have you put on the rose-colored filter or are you selling us the vaseline smeared lense for your Trump images?
i went back and took a look at what was actually said, vs what was being reported… the issue was the pamplets there was no way for cruz father to know what a wacko would do days later.. or did before that his wife knew.
i had also read the warren commission report as a kid when it came out, dad had a copy, lots of people did. it even included mcgruder film clips in the margins so you can flip them and see his head almost come off (the key frames were not in the report)
now… do you really want me to add pages and pages to prove empirically what i am saying? really? you guys dont like that, but you also dont let me slide no not giving it. please make up your minds i CAN provide the dialogues you want, why not look them up and be careful starting with what was first said
on another note, here are som 4chan stuff.. yes, i saw this stuff way before it was public as 4chan is interesting to IT security and all that, and want to guess what i do for a living when i am not taking pictures with hoi polloi?
-=-=-=-=-=-
on november 1, a person without a picture but is assumed to be the same person posted “So they took what I told Rick Wilson and added a Russian spy angle to it. They still believe it. Guys, they’re truly fucking desperate — there’s no remaining Trump scandal that’s credible.” https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/95568919/#95571329
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on january 10, moments after the story broke and began to gain traction on social media, a person with the same smug grin face, and the same hash title for the picture, stated “I didn’t think they’d take it so far.” http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/106514445#p106520376
I have to admit that on this matter, as one day leads to another, I believe more and more that the media and left is the aggressor in a no-holds-barred death match that they know they can’t afford to lose, and Trump does not really have the option of acting like a traditional politician. Remember, he actually tried being surprisingly presidential in the wake of the election, but that was then and this is now. Having wailed and colored in their coloring books and stomped their feet for weeks, the left is now gearing up for a battle for relevancy.
The left cannot let control slip out of their hands and have no intention of letting Trump go. They would’ve happily sunk him with the usual something-30-years-ago charge, or vague innuendo – the usual sort of thing that used to work to hobble GOP politicians – but that bounces unnoticed off of Trump. The left/media is for the first time dealing with a political enemy that “could kill puppies and rape children on live TV” (like we have been saying about unsinkable Democrat politicians for years) and they are literally making this up as they go along. They’re used to dealing with “presidential” GOP politicians and are having to chart new territory here.
As days go by, they are reaching for ever less rational, ever more outrageous and insane charges, looking for the bomb that will break through, and in response to these increasingly bizarre and unrelenting attacks, Trump is resorting to what works for him. He got this far that way, and I frankly don’t blame him at this point.
watch how the headlines change:
Trump accuses Cruz’s father of helping JFK’s assassin
[helping him give out pamplets as the photo shows but that isnt what it says in the article. src politico]
Donald Trump Accuses Ted Cruz’s Father of Associating With…
[well, if your standing on the corner giving out john birchs society papers that are quite offensive… your associating wiht that person… ]
after that they break out the theasaurus
but note. i live in queens, i pass the the same mosque that the terrorists for 9/11 people had associats with, and met two of them that worked in a store – and remember them well, especially mohamed atta..
so technically, i associated with them (when i bought a newspaper or lottery ticket and talked about the weather)
see the game?
then GAWKER came out with
TED CRUZ FATHER LINKED TO JFK ASSASSINATION
no, he was not linked to the assasination, he was linked to standing outside on the corner of that office handing out john birch pamplets of which i gave you the link to one
here is trumps EXACT WORDS
And you know, his father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald being… you know–shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this? And nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about it. And that was reported, and nobody talks about it.
… I mean, what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It’s horrible.
you can say the SAME about me and the 9/11 terrorists and anyone who was at the store and bought things and chatted..
if there was a picture of me with them, you might want to make the leap that i helped plan it, right? no… sorry..
want to guess that most people who do bad things have innocuous associations prior to their doing something? want to talk about the teacher who was with chapman before he shot john lennin?
and from the washington post who put up a buff that decided to look at it without adding more than what was there.
Cruz got looped in for two reasons.
The picture comes from an incident during which Oswald and two other men passed out leaflets on behalf of the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” – a national organization for which Oswald presented himself as the New Orleans branch. The official report on the assassination (that is, the Warren Commission report) indicates that there is no evidence that anyone besides Oswald could be identified as a member.
“He hired two men from the unemployment line to help him distribute the pamphlets.” That account comes from the Warren Commission’s research
the only testimony on the record is from a young man named Charles Steele, who spoke to Warren Commission lawyers in April 1964.
Some guy looking for a job in New Orleans in August 1963 was offered $2 and took it –just like Charles Steele
finishing in the next post
in case you didnt notice, people read maybe, could, and such things as certainties. here is an example from the news (i wont put the whole thing up, but you will get a taste of how peopel comprehend, which is poor):
Seen At 11: Feeling Out Of Sorts? It Might Be Something In Your Salad
she then goes on to say that copper is on par with lead… oh my! (say it like the star trek character does)…
however if you look up, you find out you can have 85 times the copper than lead. and that our bodies re very good at regulating it.
but notice how the article goes from could, woulds and that, to her saying “its the culprit”
later you find out its the cause of alzheimers.. but guess what, the nih and the alzheimers places say we dont know what causes it!!!
oh, the CBS site cuts the end of the article out..
IF you find the whole thing, the last parts explain that the dr saying its a culprit is selling her book and the article is not infomrative, its an advertisment masquerading as an article
THATS how bad people in general read.
just take a look at the reading comprehension scores from the schoool tests and such.
now i am NOT saying you read like that, you may have been reading the regurgitations of the people who read like that, and you can be sure that when they rewrite, thy make could and would into certainties because of that one certainty the expert said. and they LOVE the harm that it would do, so want it to be true so much, they foment it, like mccain did with the peegate thing
When Republicans act “Presidential” they end up like Bush and Mitt. Myself, I am ready for a Republican to fight back. Mainstream liberal media is finally getting a taste of their own medicine. It is they who created the Trump phenomenon.
by the way, these are kind of fun to take if you dont score too badly
Free English Reading comprehension tests and exercises online
http://englishteststore.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11403&Itemid=310
there are TONS of things people self believe that are not all that true… its why the close up magic shows get ratings and the mind documentary… in fact, there are tons of these things and thepeople who are profesional manipulators study it.. (and those deficient in the EQ skills study it to make up for what they lack having aspergers or other similar non psychatric issues)
and you would be appalled at the averages in the population!!! that alone explains LOTS of disparities…
given that i have to listen to make things for others its suprising to see how bad they are in general… though a lot of it is lazy carelessness and harried multitasking
Why Smart People Don’t Multitask
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/12/why-smart-people-dont-multitask.html
You may have heard that multitasking is bad for you, but studies show that it kills your performance and may even damage your brain.
Every time you multitask you aren’t just harming your performance in the moment; you may very well be damaging an area of your brain that’s critical to your future success at work
for the record, bronx science average iq of students is over 145..
i ended up there a year early and nearly had a perfect sat score prior to their changing it around and dumbing it down…
from dallas community college:
Reading Comprehension
https://www.dcccd.edu/Emp/Departments/EA/Student%20Affairs/Assessment%20Practice%20Tests/ACCUPLACER/Reading%20Comprehension/Pages/default.aspx
by the way, i work in medical reasearch… 🙂
i do lots of things and neo can verify… 🙂 🙂
Art:
All that and it still doesn’t resolve the rose-colored filter and your soft focus on Trump.