And then there's the media. The NYT and the Washington Post have a motivation to ally with the Democratic Party in its last-ditch effort to Watergatize Trump after Trump's endless criticisms of them. And this anti-Trump approach may get them a spike in readership, even as it repels some readers like me.
I'm missing the sense that I'm getting the normal news. It seems unfair and shoddy not to cover the President the way you'd cover any President. What looks like an effort to stigmatize Trump as not normal has — to my eyes — made the media abnormal.
I know some journalists argued that the normal approach shouldn't apply to covering Trump, because Trump is not normal, but that's not my idea of professionalism. Even if they were to regard professionalism in those terms — if the object of the news goes low, journalism should go low — they'd still be on the hook to continually maintain the perception that their antagonist really is low, and if they use their pages to strain to portray him as low to justify their continual debased presentation of the news, they're self-dealing and double counting.
The more seemingly normal Trump becomes — as with his speech to Congress the other day — the more the anti-Trump approach of the news media feels like a hackish alliance with the Democratic Party in its sad, negative, backward-looking effort to disrupt the President the people elected.
I would prefer for the Democratic Party to find something strong and positive to offer us in the next election and for the national media to play it straight on solid journalistic principles. Maybe they could take Trump's "great again" slogan seriously and personally. Meanwhile, we elected a President, and we deserve to see him have the opportunity to do his job. We all deserve that, whether we are in the segment of America that voted for him or not.
These paragraphs were written after, looking in my usual way for bloggable things, I saw this dominating the front page of the NYT:
Posts
225 comments:
1 – 200 of 225 Newer› Newest»Drudge has a pic of Schumer and Pooty-Poot.
As someone else pointed out, Pelosi went to Syria when W was president, and then there's Chappaquiddick Ted -TRAITOR- meeting with the Commies telling them to ignore Ronnie they will deal behind his back. Tingles Matthews confirmed it laughingly one day.
The press was 88% negative on Trump during his honeymoon phase.
And they expect us to empathize when he and his press secretary decide to not deal with them?
I hate the idea of a government without a fair media checking it. We just don't have a fair media.
I know some journalists argued that the normal approach shouldn't apply to covering Trump, because Trump not normal, but that's not my idea of professionalism.
I also utterly belies their claim to objectivity. THIS time it is OK to be biased? As the old saying goes, eschewing your standards is really hard the FIRST time. Subsequent times become way less difficult.
How can I possibly trust a word they ever say about a Republican since they feel it is OK to be biased against this man --- yet they've viewed ALL prior Republicans as equally detestable.
Glenn nails it again, of course:
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/258768/
No One Mentions That The Russian Trail Leads To Democratic Lobbyists.
The media’s focus on Trump’s Russian connections ignores the much more extensive and lucrative business relationships of top Democrats with Kremlin-associated oligarchs and companies. Thanks to the Panama Papers, we know that the Podesta Group (founded by John Podesta’s brother, Tony) lobbied for Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. “Sberbank is the Kremlin, they don’t do anything major without Putin’s go-ahead, and they don’t tell him ‘no’ either,” explained a retired senior U.S. intelligence official. 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.
Let’s not leave out fugitive Ukrainian oligarch, Dymtro Firtash. He is represented by Democratic heavyweight lawyer, Lanny Davis, who accused Trump of “inviting Putin to commit espionage” (Trump’s quip: If Putin has Hillary’s emails, release them) but denies all wrongdoing by Hillary.
It’s a good rule of thumb that lefties are guilty of whatever they’re loudly decrying.
J'recuse!
Watched CNN for an hour at lunch yesterday and also at the gym last night. Only thing on in both venues. NOTHING but Trumpbashing and endless coverage of the Sessions situation. NO OTHER NEWS COVERED in the entire period. Pathetic.....
And you're leaving out the best part, the Times's Ministry of Truth act with their article on Sessions meeting with the Russian Ambassador.
http://patterico.com/2017/03/02/devastating-proof-of-media-bias-new-york-times-airbrushes-away-democrats-embarrassing-false-claim-without-a-trace/
This is cover fire for the Republican traitors that want to stall Trump's agenda.
"But perhaps that is all they've got."
It's more than you would like to think. The leadership of the Democrats have embraced this. Supposedly Obama is going to play. It's a rolling coup, with the support of powerful media, powerful politicians and a rabid foaming at the mouth base. I thought the Birther thing with Obama was silly and petty, but it was never embraced by the mainstream. This is a serious coordinated attempt to displace a President engineered by the Democratic party apparatus.
And it's not a drive for impeachment. That is a constitutional process they know they can not win. They want to FORCE Trump out. What nature and level of force they are willing to incite remains to be seen.
Hillary, Schumer, Pelosi and top mgmt at the NYT were formed by Watergate. So, yes, they want to relieve their youth and take down the President.
Well, when you've just been handed your a** in national and state/local elections, it kind of lends itself to flailing around and doing crazy s**t.
God forbid they look inward and try to find the reason that the middle class ran away from them in droves. Better to pursue lunatic fringe conspiracy theories....
If I were the GOP, I'd give the Dems an investigation they'll never forget--starting with Ted Kennedy's 1983 letter to Brezhnev, continuing through the repeated lies people like Clapper told under oath to Congress, a real take-apart of the Clinton Foundation, and a full investigation and release of documents relating to the Iran deal. And then a thorough review of each and every meeting that Dem senators have had with any Russian ambassador.
America deserves no less.
The Sessions situation" is not a "situation." This "Russia hacked our election!!!" is entirely made up of moonshine and horsefeathers.
But it is all they have.
You dispassionate analysis is spot on. Thanks
You would think that the Democrats and their MSM operatives would realize that declaring open warfare on the Trump administration is inviting Trump to use against them the executive branch they weaponized. Somehow I don't expect Trump to allow himself and his administration to victimized by them. I do expect that he will redouble his efforts to dismantle the "Deep State" and to make the Democrats and the MSM (I know, I repeat myself) rue the day they declared war on him.
Monsieur le Président,
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Well, these are not normal times and none of this is normal politics. There is now a massive fight over the reform of tyhe FedGov. This is the part I thought would go hard, and I still doubt Trump and co. can succeed.
Of course the MSM are instruments in the power struggle, because they are beyond anything else political instruments of their owners. This is their role, they are not normal businesses.
Dave D said...
NO OTHER NEWS COVERED in the entire period. Pathetic.....
It's all part of Trump's plan to let the Rooskies sneak up on us while we're distracted.
It's unfortunate, because we really do need a healthy Democratic party as a counterbalance to the Republicans - that actually results in a healthier Republican party. But "healthy" in this context doesn't mean a party that wins elections, it means a party that cares about the future of the country, and has plans, for which there are rational arguments, that they feel will help the country achieve a brighter future. The great majority of today's Democrats don't provide that.
I hate the media. I hate the Democrat Party. I hate leftists.
I'm a hater. But a happy one!
Here's a thought experiment: What if they're right?
It's for women. The story the battle to preserve political correctness.
Anyway for the 40% of women who tune in for soap opera.
It they ran what's hallucinated to be straight journalism, there would be no audience and no money to pay the bills.
Know your audience.
The alternative media have a following owning to hatred of the MSM by men and 60% of women, but that too would die out if the MSM stops possessing their serious media cachet among their audience.
David,
"They want to FORCE Trump out. What nature and level of force they are willing to incite remains to be seen."
I agree, and I expect that they will start attacking his family to a greater degree than they already have.
Honesty plays no role in the modern democrat party. The corruption starts at the Clintons and rolls down thru the sewage that is the modern democrat party.
What Trump should say: "For every one investigation of me, I will have the FBI open two for you.
First up: The Clinton Foundation, and the Iran deal.
Your turn."
We will never heal from Viet Nam nor Watergate.
Obama agents planting fake intelligence all over was a nice move.
Deep state gets its resonanace from deep shit.
Train the swamp.
@Ann You express my feelings about this Russian thing quite accurately and much more politely than I would. I think the whole thing is a steaming pile of horseshit and the Dems are going to be very surprised to find that they are the ones who have fallen in it.
The media are covering Trump like they cover all Republicans but even more, with even more bias.
I do not think it is so much to relive Watergate as "the Plame affair."
And please remember that "Scooter" Libby was prosecuted for lying about who told him* that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's wife, not whom he told.
* My theory is that it was none other than Dick Cheney himself, who had heard it from his daughter Mary, who was friends with these people and had heard them bragging about what a number they were pulling on the stupid Republicans.
Bannon and Breitbart were right. There is a carefully crafted European World Governance conspiracy tempting everyone in the world to only see the movement of Bank credits over a border less World creating wealth. And that is traitorous.
Trump actually knew it was goung on and he told them NO. Now the the waves of counter-attacks on him has just begun.
The good part is the exposure of the Fake News conspirators working with the Soros/Obama fake demonstration conspirators and and the conspirators in the CIA with its actors using Hollywood worthy production of false flag attacks.
The genie is out of the bottle.
"I would prefer for the Democratic Party to find something strong and positive to offer us in the next election and for the national media to play it straight on solid journalistic principles."
Me too. The problem is that the Democratic Party has gotten locked into circles of corruption that it can't break from.
The very fact Hillary Clinton was their candidate, and many other better candidates didn't even try, points to how much power is being used to keep the status quo. Same with the media. Having invested in driving ratings by division and chaos, there is no model of straight news anymore. It's like if all television became reality TV shows (as it almost did) and there wasn't anyone left who knew how to write a quality scripted show.
This is all they have.
Republicans were not any better, but the tea party movement shook things up and shook folks out. Democrats need a similar truly grassroots movement, but the problem with that is all the money for activism is coming from the entrenched powers, and thus directed against demonizing Republicans.
Democrats have an important role to play as does the media. Vital. But "making politicians wealthier" is an increasingly untenable party plank. It worked fine in Venezuela (until they ran out of money), but there's still too much backlash here to pull it off.
Here's a thought experiment: What if they're right?
Not bloody likely. It's as stupid as the YouTube video being the cause of Egypt/Benghazi on 9-11-2012. It's a lie that assumes you are stupid. Left Bank most likely is.
Well, these are not normal times and none of this is normal politics. There is now a massive fight over the reform of the FedGov.
Yep. This is war to the knife. A war that, sooner or later, had to be fought. I hope Trump doesn't go wobbly on us. I expect the GOP to go wobbly, but if Trump keeps on the offensive, GOP wobbliness may not matter.
It would seem to me that if there are enough "normal" Democrats left, their best strategy would be to triangulate, work with Trump on issues that they can agree on (there are many, he is not a conservative...and they could easily co-opt Ivanka and Jared who are natural NY moderate liberals, I think). They could do it somewhat at arms length, making much of the fact that they were reaching across the aisle...and choosing ways to put wedges between parts of the GOP coalition (the fissures are already there.)
But instead, it seems that Obama and his allies have decided to distract from any potential work getting done by creating squirrels of faux scandal for the media to chase, all because they want to ensure that the GOP won't be able to quickly dismantle Obamacare. Perhaps also to make sure details don't come out about the Iran deal and other foreign policy debacles.
Sad.
@Buwaya "Well, these are not normal times and none of this is normal politics. There is now a massive fight over the reform of the FedGov. This is the part I thought would go hard, and I still doubt Trump and co. can succeed."
+1. Exactly. Trump has done a few executive orders, his appointments can do a certain amount as heads of their agencies. But there are close to _three million_ non-military federal employees (google it). Most of those are Civil Service. Congress can't pass anything that can be filibustered. The most they can do is defund things, presumably on a very granular scale.
The entire Civil Service is at war with the Trump Administration, including Intelligence, and aided and abetted by the Democrats in Congress and the media. The Republicans have legal control, but not all of them are on a war footing, and many of them still want to protect this earmark or that one. On many issues there may be no majority.
Not sure what will happen. Fun times.
Oh, I forgot to point out that who told "Scooter" had nothing to do with anything. He apparently was one of the last on Washington merry-go-round to know.
Fernandinande quotes Baudelaire [I think] and paraphrases Zola. Good work! Sessions has done what Lynch should have done but lacked the honesty and integrity to do.
Do you think that Bannon is, perhaps, planning a counterstrike to all this Russian nonsense. I think Amadeus may be right on target that the Dems are going to be very sorry that they started this. The Dems are not used to having the other side prepared to fight as dirty as they do. In other news Carson was finally confirmed yesterday. Trump is unlikely to allow himself to be distracted by any of this. He is not, thank God, a normal politician.
I know some journalists argued that the normal approach shouldn't apply to covering Trump, because Trump not normal, but that's not my idea of professionalism.
Obama, as the first black president, was also seen by the press as "not normal". He too was not covered normally, lest the idea that valid criticism of his administration be seen as anything but thinly-veiled racism.
Those believing a Republican in the White House would restore normalcy to the media didn't count on this level of over-correction. I don't believe this press knows what "the normal approach to covering a president" is anymore. Just listening to them argue hour after hour that they're just "holding him accountable" and "doing their jobs" tells me the profession has lost some tacit knowledge it may never regain.
Left Bank of the Charles said...
Here's a thought experiment: What if they're right?
3/3/17, 9:22 AM
What if? My reply is so what and who cares?
Really, after 8 years of Clinton, a respite, and 8 years of Obama, in both cases where the MSM mainly turned a blind-eye to Federal over-reach, domestic spying, illegal killing of US citizens, pay-for-play, gun running, attacking citizens with government agencies (IRS, EPA, etc.), and all sorts of other illegal activities by those in power, again all where the media mostly went along and anyone that noticed all of this was called "unpatriotic" (in Clinton's time) and a "tea bagger" (now), I just don't care any more. Trump is pissing off and scaring all of the right people. I no longer believe a single thing the news says. If I see mushroom clouds out my window, I will care (too late) but that is where we are. The Democrats and media made this bed and I (and many others) just don't care any more.
They can all go F*** themselves. They don't care about the country. They don't care about its citizens. They don't care about our future. They (Democrates, deep-state, MSM, RINOs) ONLY care about their individual power. F*** them all.
On conclusions about the nature and control of the US mass media-
It is a matter of inductive reasoning. One observes what they do, whom it benefits. One observes, for instance, what has every appearance of extremely close coordination among what should be separate enterprises. One observes, moreover, their ownership structure and the interests of some of their owners (of the first or second order; the owners-of-their-owners-of-their-owners gets obscure).
One then comes up with a theory to explain such phenomena; the theory is judged by how well it explains phenomena, and whether any observations contradict it. One also uses it to attempt to predict phenomena.
This is what the Times looks like just before the fall.
The question is what is about to fall?
What is failing? Read Charles Murray.
Again...
Many of us who are Republicans and critics of the left-leaning mainstream media have (rightfully) often engaged in the game of taking a story or an editorial and flipping the political parties or other interest of the subjects. They treat "Republican/conservative" stories one way, and "Democrat/liberal stories another way.
But do that reversal exercise with this sentence from the customarily fair-minded Ann Althouse:
I would prefer for the Democratic Party to find something strong and positive to offer us in the next election and for the national media to play it straight on solid journalistic principles.
She's right to think that way, and I think she is reflective of most of the educated voting populace.
But, again, do the flip-thing: "I would prefer Trump to find something strong and positive to offer us in the next election and for the national media to play it straight on solid journalistic principles." It sounds like Mitch McConnell, quietly lecturing Trump. "Quit the Twitter account. Get off the attacks on the NYT and CNN. You don't sound like a President for 2017 and beyond, when you are whining about 'the Clinton News Network.' You could get re-elected, if we can come up with a decent health insurance reform bill, and a daring tax reform bill, and we get the economy going."
Watergate destroyed the media. It was because of Watergate that we have all these liberal reporters who think it's their job to change the world.
I do expect that he will redouble his efforts to dismantle the "Deep State" and to make the Democrats and the MSM (I know, I repeat myself) rue the day they declared war on him.
3/3/17, 9:11 AM
The worst culprits in all of this are the Republicans who are giving the Democrats cover. If the GOP stood united, there is not much the Democrats could do. But the GOPe consists of gutless wonders and those who profit from the Deep State themselves and they want Trump to fail as much as the Democrats do.
I hope Trump doesn't go wobbly on us. I expect the GOP to go wobbly, but if Trump keeps on the offensive, GOP wobbliness may not matter.
Amen to that, roughcoat! I'm used to the fruitless cowardice of the GOP but I'm hoping Trump stands firm. He knows who got him elected and it wasn't the GOP.
"It's so sad, and so negative. So backward-looking and devoid of promise."
It's like a situation where your daughter marries a man you don't like.
You had warned her about him and pointed out his many flaws and shortcomings. You pushed her to consider another man who you thought would be much better suited to make her happy and provide a good future for her in the long run.
Of course your logic failed because marriage is an emotional decision not logical one.
Now, instead of respecting her decision and supporting her going forward, every time you meet, you tell her how much you dislike her new husband and express how unhappy she has made you by marrying him.
Does your daughter change her mind? Does this constant harangue bring her around to your way of thinking? No. She begins to avoid you.
Yeah, Bannon is plotting for pushback after they get their bills passed.
Bye the bye and not entirely OT:
A guy named Juan Thompson has been arrested in St. Louis in connection with bomb threats targeting Jewish community centers.
I know it will come as a shock, but he appears to be a leftist journalist who was fired from the Intercept (Glenn Greenwald's site) for fake news:
"The worst of it was a supposedly exclusive interview with a cousin of accused killer Dylann Roof after the slaughter of nine members of an historic black church in South Carolina. Investigators at the Intercept, while reviewing Thompson's work, could find no evidence the cousin exists.
Thompson claimed that racism had led to his ouster from the left-leaning site, but the RFT's investigation turned up several other problems with his reporting, going back to his first days in journalism writing for his college newspaper. "
This story will vanish pretty quickly.
It's somewhat interesting to speculate where the media may go from here. When you're constantly screaming at the top of your lungs, how long can you keep it up? When you infer sinister intent from every little thing Trump does, when you're constantly seeing Ruskies under the bed, when you're endlessly sounding the alarm at every slight deviation or error or even the mildest inconsistency committed by any significant figure in the Trump administration... how long can you last? Will you ever grow tired, or is that all you have left? Will your readers ever grow tired, or is it just red meat to fuel them? Will they ever be able to attract new readers and viewers if they're constantly stuck on 11?
Or maybe they'll eventually realize that this is a marathon, not a sprint. I wonder if they'll be able to ratchet back their paranoia and hyper sensitivity and actually begin to focus and be more methodical in their approach. I mean, if they view Trump as their ultimate enemy, their current strategy (of losing their minds at every little thing) doesn't seem to be working super well.
Yeah, but remember when it looked like Clinton was going to be elected the Republicans were vowing all manner of investigations from the outset. Now they refuse to investigate this Russian business we knew before the election would be a big story.
It's like a situation where your daughter marries a man you don't like.
You had warned her about him and pointed out his many flaws and shortcomings. You pushed her to consider another man who you thought would be much better suited to make her happy and provide a good future for her in the long run.
Of course your logic failed because marriage is an emotional decision not logical one.
Now, instead of respecting her decision and supporting her going forward, every time you meet, you tell her how much you dislike her new husband and express how unhappy she has made you by marrying him.
Does your daughter change her mind? Does this constant harangue bring her around to your way of thinking? No. She begins to avoid you.
Or... Her husband could be Dan Markel. That's what the 'bring him down' cabal is basically going for here, granted, short of actually killing Trump as happened to Markel. That's a real long shot as a bet, and it shows how desperate and irresponsible these folks really are. Think what America will be if they get their way.
Think of what's next if this effort fails.
What do you expect? Much of Trump's campaign against Clinton was negative: crooked Hillary should be in jail, not in the White House. And it worked! The number of voters who were voting AGAINST Clinton -- not FOR Trump -- surely handed him the White House. Of course it's cynical, and the strategy may well fail, but Democrats do not occupy (and are not obligated to occupy) some moral high ground.
mockturtle said...
I hope Trump doesn't go wobbly on us. I expect the GOP to go wobbly, but if Trump keeps on the offensive, GOP wobbliness may not matter.
Amen to that, roughcoat! I'm used to the fruitless cowardice of the GOP but I'm hoping Trump stands firm. He knows who got him elected and it wasn't the GOP.
Who do you think is going to write a replacement for Obamacare? Trump doesn't know the first goddam thing about health care or insurance. He's the barking, car-chasing dog, who caught the car. The GOP House leadership has to write it, and they have to write it in a way that pleases the GOP Senate leadership.
Ditto tax reform. Trump will need to submit a budget; that will be interesting, to see how he balances that sucker.
I listen to Rush, and watch Hannity, in very rapidly decreasing amounts. I'm sick of them, with their paranoid bashing of Republicans. There's no real Democrat media corollary. The NYT and CNN aren't bashing moderate Democrats for their compromises, or political reality. I suppose that you could cite "The Nation" or "Democracy Now!" or occasionally The New Yorker for their very rare attacks on mainstream Democrats. But that is not any sort of "Main Stream Media." If that is your idea of mainstream media, then mainstream media is not a liberal monolith at all, because more people read the Wall Street Journal, National Review and the Weekly Standard, and watch Fox News, than any of the ultraliberal partisans of the extremist left.
Oh, and Juan M. Thompson's Twitter feed is still up:
"You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker"
Let me see if I understand: Sessions talking to a Russian diplomat MUST be investigated by Congress.
Obama giving $1.5 Billion, in cash, to Iran must not be discussed.
Is that about it?
And this anti-Trump approach may get them a spike in readership
NYT coordinates 50% off sales with their desire to report increases in NYT readership.
@DanTheMan,
You are a couple of decimal points off. It was ~150 billion, though in wire transfers, whatever that is, after the first 1.7 billion in cash of various hard currencies.
Let me see if I understand: Sessions talking to a Russian diplomat MUST be investigated by Congress.
Obama giving $1.5 Billion, in cash, to Iran must not be discussed.
Is that about it?
No, but it's a start. There's much, much more.
Exiled notes: A guy named Juan Thompson has been arrested in St. Louis in connection with bomb threats targeting Jewish community centers.
I know it will come as a shock, but he appears to be a leftist journalist who was fired from the Intercept (Glenn Greenwald's site) for fake news:
And he is black. Imagine that! A black antisemite! /sarc
Give the Dems what they say they want: a comprehensive investigation of foreign influence peddling. My guess is that a lot of Clintonistas end up in jail if that happens.
If the Democrats are successful in a palace coup that ousts a duly elected president, there will be a shooting war in response that will make the Civil War pale in comparison. This is not politics as usual; they're playing with fire and we are all going to be burned.
>>It was ~150 billion, though in wire transfers, whatever that is, after the first 1.7 billion in cash of various hard currencies.
Thanks for the correction. At least we can be sure it wasn't a ransom for the hostages they wouldn't release until they had the cash in hand. No story there at all...
But Trump didn't take the press with him to dinner after the election. SCANDAL!!!!
readering,
"Now they refuse to investigate this Russian business we knew before the election would be a big story."
No, they refuse to investigate this Russian business because we knew before the election that it should not be a big story.
Significant difference, which many (including you, apparently) can't/refuse to see.
Wait.. I have an idea: Sessions should give the Russians $1.5 Billion in cash, and then bow to Putin.
If history is a guide, there will be almost no coverage, right?
There's no real Democrat media corollary.
Of course there isn't. The hive mind doesn't allow dissenters to survive. Rush/Hannity call out those that are not representing the interests of America. You want them to stop? Then you are one of those enemies. The Uniparty will be destroyed.
Chuck,
The problem of reform is with the system as a whole, and Republicans most certainly are compromised. This is not controversial. They are part of whats wrong, deeply implicated in the corporatism and its consequent corruption.
For instance the bill that let private enterprises off the hook for proper maintenance of their pension funds in 2012 was bipartisan. You did not hear much about that. The details are easily found, they are in public records, government data and commentary by actuarial firms on the internet. One would think it should be a scandal, what with pension fund failures being a matter of some interest. But no, silence.
Also for instance the matters of, say, carbon credits, intellectual property, H1b visas, etc. are areas where the economic interests of many of the erstwhile backers of many Republicans conflict with the platform of Trump.
What looks like an effort to stigmatize Trump as not normal has — to my eyes — made the media abnormal.
Well...better late than never. For many of us, this has been standard operating procedure for the media towards Republicans since Goldwater.
I would prefer for the Democratic Party to find something strong and positive to offer us in the next election
Wait...you mean an obsession with identity politics, the normalization of deviancy, the right to kill your unborn baby, class warfare and support for illegal immigration aren't strong and positive?
mockturtle said...
Fernandinande quotes Baudelaire [I think] and paraphrases Zola.
That block of text was Zola's "J'accuse" letter run thru a 2nd order Eddington Monkey, so most of it is nonsense that looks like French; it goes well with the FNYT, which is nonsense that looks like English.
Hey Hey We're the 2nd Order Eddington Monkeys
And people say we 2nd Order Monkey around
But we're too busy ordering
To read the Fake NYT news.
The hostages part of the cash transfer deal is indeed most curious. Makes no sense at all, and the whole thing begs for an explanation.
The democrats with their media sidekicks are the most dangerous organization in America.
"And he is black. Imagine that! A black antisemite! /sarc"
He appears to be a Black Muslim, mockturtle.
Yeah, this story definitely isn't going anywhere.
Here's a thought experiment: What if they're right?
That's actually a great thought experiment because it forces you to actually quantify what "them" being right means.
What in god's name is actually being alleged here? Sessions is a Russian spy? The Russians rigged voting machines in Michigan? The Russians committed journalism that slightly increased DT's election chances? No, no, and maybe.
And what, supposedly, is DT giving Putin in return? What, that would be outside the bounds of normal international relations and would be worse than the bar set by the previous administration with the Russian Uranium deal and the Iranian cash ransom payment.
Anything that meets these criteria that "they" could be right about sounds like witless ravings to me.
Gahrie said...
Wait...you mean an obsession with identity politics, the normalization of deviancy, the right to kill your unborn baby, class warfare and support for illegal immigration aren't strong and positive?
3/3/17, 10:23 AM
It COULD be, you just need the right PR firm to sell it. It just needs to be packaged properly...
"It's so sad, and so negative. So backward-looking and devoid of promise. But perhaps that is all they've got." It is, but of course the only "promise" that matters to them is the prospect of gaining power. Their usual promises, to hand out other people's money, are strictly tools, and for lack of current power, temporarily ineffective.
"I'm missing the sense that I'm getting the normal news. It seems unfair and shoddy not to cover the President the way you'd cover any President. What looks like an effort to stigmatize Trump as not normal has — to my eyes — made the media abnormal." Sure, they are little more blatant right now, but it's just a ramped-up version of the way they cover any GOP president. It's encouraging that you are recognizing the reality, dispensing with faux neutrality.
DarkHelmet said...
Give the Dems what they say they want: a comprehensive investigation of foreign influence peddling. My guess is that a lot of Clintonistas end up in jail if that happens.
I'm starting to wonder if that's what this is all about. Preemptive strike so the Dems can claim that any investigation done by the Trump admin is tainted.
exiledonmainstreet said...
A guy named Juan Thompson has been arrested in St. Louis in connection with bomb threats targeting Jewish community centers.
Obama's imaginary son is just another pitiful victim of white racists:
Know any good lawyers? Need to stop this nasty/racist #whitegirl I dated who sent a bomb threat in my name & wants me to be raped in jail. pic.twitter.com/B1IU0RkNCZ — Juan M. Thompson (@JuanMThompson) February 24, 2017
Making excuses for and the translating of Trump statements into something intelligable seems abnormal to me. Ignoring the massive amounts of investigative journalism and leaks regarding the Trump/Putin connection seems abnormal to me. The blind adoration of Trump, no matter what he does, seems abnormal to me. Expecting news outlets to not report news about Trump seems abnormal to me. Expecting half of America to jump aboard the Trump train seems abnormal to me. 80% of the commenters here seem abnormal to me.
Alas, all this searching for a new Watergate is symptomatic of Deep Glory Days Syndrome with a nod to the paradigmatic terminal case, The Bruce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vQpW9XRiyM
This is why refusing himself or giving one iota of credence to this crap is a huge mistake. The dumbass NRO cannot help themselves but sessions had better get thicker skin or they will lie and smear him right out of office.
As one poster said:.
"They can all go F*** themselves. They don't care about the country. They don't care about its citizens. They don't care about our future. They (Democrates, deep-state, MSM, RINOs) ONLY care about their individual power. F*** them all."
"Who do you think is going to write a replacement for Obamacare? Trump doesn't know the first goddam thing about health care or insurance. He's the barking, car-chasing dog, who caught the car."
"No one knew healthcare was so complicated."
~Trump
I find myself wondering if the Democratic party is running out of time? It's about a year away from the beginning of the 2018 primary season, and obviously they have to perform in 2018. This all can't be doing Democratic politicians on the ground much good!
Reactions over this trumped-up scandal and the incessant media coverage have varied from fury to disgust to confusion among my connections, but nobody is finding it a plus for the Democrats. Nobody. Not even the Democrats!
In the meantime, I have to read foreign papers to find out what the news is, which is ridiculous. In the meantime, the economy is rapidly improving.
Can the Democratic party AFFORD to become the enemy of a good economy? That's how this is all going to play in Peoria. ...
Ann: I know some journalists argued that the normal approach shouldn't apply to covering Trump, because Trump is not normal, but that's not my idea of professionalism.
The worst part about it is it not necessary. If Trump is as bad as the journalists want us to believe, then ordinary journalism should be able to reveal many a damning story and accomplish the same goal.
So far we have been given one fake outrage after another, revealing clear bias and, far worse, overt coordination with one political party. Sources like the New York Times and the Washington Post simply have no credibility anymore to the point that if they did find an actual true damning story my first, second, and third impression would be that they are lying. The fourth impression would be, given how corrupt the media has become, so what? The fifth impression would be to assume that thanks to media incompetence democracy has, indeed, died in darkness and I'll pick the darkness that better suits my interests.
From Benghazi to Damascus to Kiev, it has been a progressive war of elective regime changes, extrajudicial trials, and propaganda campaigns to protect Obama et al. The Press is responsible for the cover-up of Obama waging social justice that was a first-order cause of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change leading to the creation of abortion fields and forced catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform in a trail of tears. The globalists, anti-native factions, [class] diversitists, redistributive changers, and resource monopolies (i.e. anti-capitalist) cannot afford to lose control of the government, state resources, and debt leverage. So, the New York Times, Washington Post, and other organelles of the establishment have been on a warpath from the day Trump announced his candidacy, and nothing has changed. There was a reason for their acute phobia of Trump and warm embrace of Obama and past establishment candidates.
"Reactions over this trumped-up scandal and the incessant media coverage have varied from fury to disgust to confusion among my connections, but nobody is finding it a plus for the Democrats. Nobody. Not even the Democrats! "
Trump's scandals have nothing to do with Democrats, Trump's scandals are not good for America. Thank goodness the Press is doing their job and not giving in to pressure from the right to suppress reporting about Trump.
Republicans should stop rolling over for Democrats. It's a terrible habit, they should get over it. If the Dems have something, let 'em bring it.
Meanwhile, the Republican response should be; Go jump in an effin lake, punks.
Unknown said...
Making excuses for and the translating of Trump statements into something intelligable seems abnormal to me. Ignoring the massive amounts of investigative journalism and leaks regarding the Trump/Putin connection seems abnormal to me. The blind adoration of Trump, no matter what he does, seems abnormal to me. Expecting news outlets to not report news about Trump seems abnormal to me. Expecting half of America to jump aboard the Trump train seems abnormal to me. 80% of the commenters here seem abnormal to me.
3/3/17, 10:48 AM
You do understand that at some point someone with any level of introspection would question if it is indeed the "rest of the country" that is abnormal or the face in the mirror...
Trump certainly brings some negative coverage on himself. But even taking that into account, the MSM was, and is, clearly biased against Trump and in favor of the Democrats. The press's obvious bias was one reason why I voted for Trump. And the Democrats' insane obstructionism and attempt to de-legitimize Trump only makes me support him more.
None of this is going to give the Democrats control of the House or Senate, and none of it is going to put Hillary Clinton in the White House.
Who do you think is going to write a replacement for Obamacare?
I think Trump could be forgiven for thinking that Republican congressional leadership - patriotic statesmen all, you assure us - had taken care of that during at least one of the half dozen or so times that the House already voted to repeal Obamacare. Surely good men and true like Paul Ryan (and Mitch McConnell - the Senate voted at least once) wouldn't have staged those votes as part of a cynical charade just to win elections.
Who do you think is going to write a replacement for Obamacare?
Golly, I don't know. All I said was, I expect the GOP to go wobbly and I hope Trump won't.
"You do understand that at some point someone with any level of introspection would question if it is indeed the "rest of the country" that is abnormal..."
Althouse seems to see people who oppose (for damn good reason) Trump as abnormal, we who oppose him see your adoration of him as abnormal. So now half of the country sees the other half as nuts. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Chuck to mock: "Amen to that, roughcoat! I'm used to the fruitless cowardice of the GOP but I'm hoping Trump stands firm. He knows who got him elected and it wasn't the GOP."
Who do you think is going to write a replacement for Obamacare? Trump doesn't know the first goddam thing about health care or insurance. He's the barking, car-chasing dog, who caught the car. The GOP House leadership has to write it, and they have to write it in a way that pleases the GOP Senate leadership.
Which doesn't refute mock's assertion at all. It isn't news to anybody that GOPe-ers can, and will certainly try to, thwart any attempt to change the status quo. In fact, this problem is discussed here quite often. You're not enlightening anyone about anything with your continued thuggish assertions about how your guys have all the power and are gonna fuck up Trump if he doesn't kiss their ass.
Unless of course you are trying to reinforce, not refute, the view that the GOPe are scum-sucking uniparty lap-dogs. But that they are so is true regardless of whether they can or cannot be coerced into writing legislation that serves anything besides their donors.
Chuck: I listen to Rush, and watch Hannity, in very rapidly decreasing amounts. I'm sick of them, with their paranoid bashing of Republicans.
I don't listen to Rush, or watch Hannity, at all, and never have. Somehow I arrived at the conclusion that the GOPe were a pack of useless uniparty lap-dogs, without their help.
There's no real Democrat media corollary. The NYT and CNN aren't bashing moderate Democrats for their compromises, or political reality.
Yes, and that this is so, and why, is not a mystery to any person of normal intelligence, a minimal hold on sanity, and some acquaintance with reality. The Party really is your life, your whole life, inner and outer, isn't it, Chuck?
Who do you think is going to write a replacement for Obamacare? Trump doesn't know the first goddam thing about health care or insurance. He's the barking, car-chasing dog, who caught the car. The GOP House leadership has to write it, and they have to write it in a way that pleases the GOP Senate leadership.
You assume, though, that the leadership DOES know a thing about health care or insurance. I'm not convinced that they do, either. Lawyers seem awfully sure that they know everything but they are seldom correct.
I listen to Rush, and watch Hannity, in very rapidly decreasing amounts. I'm sick of them, with their paranoid bashing of Republicans.
I feel the same about reading Weekly Standard or National Review, mind you.
There's no real Democrat media corollary. The NYT and CNN aren't bashing moderate Democrats for their compromises, or political reality. I suppose that you could cite "The Nation" or "Democracy Now!" or occasionally The New Yorker for their very rare attacks on mainstream Democrats. But that is not any sort of "Main Stream Media." If that is your idea of mainstream media, then mainstream media is not a liberal monolith at all, because more people read the Wall Street Journal, National Review and the Weekly Standard, and watch Fox News, than any of the ultraliberal partisans of the extremist left.
Because, when push comes to shove, the Democrats always fall in line. Stupak was an ardent pro-lifer --- until the one moment where it was needed for the party for him to be more flexible. And, lo and behold, he became way more flexible in getting Obamacare passed.
The party of Lois Lerner, the party of "it was the video", the party of Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on a tarmac 11th hour secret meeting while Hillary was under investigation for setting up a Private Server while she headed the State Department - this party is unhinged and desperate and their media will spread any lie.
Republicans should stop rolling over for Democrats. It's a terrible habit, they should get over it. If the Dems have something, let 'em bring it.
David, they roll over because they are cut from the same cloth and share the same goal, which is to maintain the status quo.
A lot of savvy people thought that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president. This included the Russians. They undoubtedly worked to discredit her. This probably wasn't designed to help Trump so much as it was to weaken Hillary's stature when she became president.....I suppose some of this helped Trump, but he was rather the collateral beneficiary of their designs rather than the target. In any case, I don't see how the Russians' attempt to interfere in our election makes Trump, Sessions, Bannon et al knowing agents of a Russian plot.......Looking for a conspiracy theory? Obama officials leaked info about Russian activities to the right people. Just after Trump makes a well received speech, news about Sessions' meeting with Russian ambassador breaks. Why didn't news of this occur after Sessions made his statement to Congress. A tad suspicious and manipulative, no?
Angle-Dyne: "The Party really is your life, your whole life, inner and outer, isn't it, Chuck?"
If so it is definitely an unrequited love.
William, excellent comment. I agree that it's a strong possibility that the Russians were trying to hurt Clinton more than they were trying to help Trump, however I must ask, why did several members of the Trump campaign staff have meetings with the Russians during the campaign? Does Trump's extensive connections to Russian oligarchs not peak your interest? Or do you think it's entirely fake news?
Note how the media casually skipped by the dead Democrat Staffer...mysteriously murdered after some of these leaks started to break.
By all means - media- just ignore it. A dead DNC staffer is just a coincidence.
Assange suggests DNC staffer was killed for a reason. Again, precious D media, do not investigate!
"Who do you think is going to write a replacement for Obamacare? Trump doesn't know the first goddam thing about health care or insurance."
I'm thinking Tom Price might know a bit about it and have a few good ideas.
WTF do most politicians and lawyers know about how to help people start businesses and create jobs? Not one fucking thing, especially if they have spent their entire adult lives in the public sector, and yet that doesn't stop them from writing and passing laws about it.
Chuck, Trump is smarter than you are, even if he doesn't have a law degree.
"David, they roll over because they are cut from the same cloth and share the same goal, which is to maintain the status quo."
Mockturtle: I wouldn't put Jeff Sessions in that category. Yet he rolled over - for virtually nothin'. Very disappointing.
It's becoming apparent that even some of the Trump people don't understand that we're in a war. And warriors don't roll over. Even more infuriating, they're rolling over for punks - for pansy-ass, goo-pot liberals.
"I wouldn't put Jeff Sessions in that category. Yet he rolled over - for virtually nothin'. Very disappointing."
Maybe someone told him they have intercepted communications between him and the Russian Ambassador. Maybe Sessions was being smart and trying to save himself.
It's becoming apparent that even some of the Trump people don't understand that we're in a war. And warriors don't roll over. Even more infuriating, they're rolling over for punks - for pansy-ass, goo-pot liberals.
David, these pansy-asses all have one thing in common, regardless of party: They are all career politicians.
Just as Republicans kept longing for another Reagan, Democrats and the media are longing for another Watergate.
And, yes, I realize there is a fair amount of overlap of "Democrats" and "the media."
@unknown: Does it pique your interest to wonder why the Russians would conspire to elect a president who supports fracking, increased oil and coal production, and increased defense spending? It's credible to assume that the Russians meddled in our election, but it's not credible to posit that their end game was the election of Trump, nor that Trump and his associates collaborated with them.
Here's a thought experiment: What if they're right?
Well, I hope I'd have better evidence than golden showers and Sessions answering a question truthfully.
exiledonmainstreet: "I'm thinking Tom Price might know a bit about it and have a few good ideas."'
But Tom Price is not loved by the GOPe. He is too much of an icky conservative for them. Let's face it, if you are not Chris Mathews it's unlikely that McCain is going to develop a real friendship with you.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jul/06/theendofjohnmccain
Snip from this blast from the past: "The path McCain took to the nomination was an odd one. He first sewed up the general election by burnishing his credentials among independents and securing his base in the media. (A significant number of journalists either do, or should, put disclaimers in their writings about their family or professional connections to McCain's campaign. The LA Times' Ron Brownstein, America's best mainstream political reporter, is married to the campaign spokesperson.)"
Remember that McCain was every GOPe/"lifelong republican"/Moby dream candidate for the republicans.
The party base refused to turn out for McCain the moron and no wonder really. He is an idiot on so many levels. It is no coincidence that when the dems needed a republican patsy to soften their culpability in the Keating 5 scandal or Harry Reid needed a ready-made republican "sucker" to drag into the fake Russian Dossier story that they always turn to McCain.
And he is always to happy to help to get back at all those evil republicans and possibly, if he tries hard enough, to worm his way back into the wonderful good graces of his beloved MSNBC hosts.
Is McCain really willing to go along with this administrative coup attempt to spite the republican base that didn't love him enough? I think the answer has become avoidable based on actions and statements: "yes".
William said...
@unknown: Does it pique your interest to wonder why the Russians would conspire to elect a president who supports fracking, increased oil and coal production, and increased defense spending? It's credible to assume that the Russians meddled in our election, but it's not credible to posit that their end game was the election of Trump, nor that Trump and his associates collaborated with them.
3/3/17, 11:54 AM
Oh, she's been asked that question before. You won't get an answer as to why the Russians would prefer Trump to the woman who sold them our uranium.
Or why the Russians would put all their eggs in the Trump basket when very few people believed he would win in November.
It's ludicrous.
Yes William it does pique (thanks for the correct spelling, lol) my interest that the Russians would be interested in having Trump as President despite Trump's pro fracking stance. I think that perhaps there were more aspects to Trump that appealed to the Russians, like promises of the removal of sanctions. They liked his stance on NATO and more that might not be public yet.
Let's have some real fun Amadeus.
Open up Bubba's impeachment files.
I wonder why those public spirited folks at NBC didn't release the pussy grabbing tape when Trump was running in the Republican primaries. It makes one think that they weren't against Trump, but rather against the Republican candidate. In like way, I wonder why news of the conflict in Sessions' testimony with that of his meeting with the Russian ambassador didn't break immediately after his testimony. That would be the appropriate time to release the news. Instead it breaks the day after Trump has made a successful speech.....I have some reservations about Trump, but they're nothing compared to the suspicions and hostility I feel towards the media.
Heh. Trump tweeted out a picture of Chuck Schumer yukking it up with Putin. Trump is calling for an immediate investigation of Schumer's ties with Russia.
You know why I like this president more and more every day? Because he fights.
I depend on the media to report the news accurately. It's our responsilibility to separate the chaff from the wheat. I think it's overwrought to demonize the entire Press.
I'm so old...
How old are you?
I'm so old that I remember how the New York Times and the Washington Post handled Sarah Palin's email account being hacked and nearly 25,000 pages of her emails released to the public just prior to the 2008 election.
WaPo, NYT to crowdsource Palin emails
Now granted, 2008 is a ways back, but I don't seem to recall incessant whining, marches and riots, claims of collusion and the election being hacked, endless coverage of baseless speculation in the press, and a soft coup attempt against Obama.
Dear members of the press and the Democrat party. If you have evidence that Trump colluded with Russia, then present the evidence. If you don't, then shut the hell up about it until you do.
>>"Who do you think is going to write a replacement for Obamacare? Trump doesn't know the first goddam thing about health care or insurance."
And you think Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid did? HRC *proved* in the early 90's that she didn't have any answers.
Maybe we can all agree that Congress passing more laws and making health care more complex and expensive isn't the right way to solve this problem. Haven't we already proven that over the last 6 years?
Democrats invited foriegn ambassadors to their convention.
https://www.bciu.org/events/55798/business-reception-at-the-democratic-national-convention-with-foreign-ambassadors
>>Sarah Palin's email account being hacked and nearly 25,000 pages of her emails released to the public just prior to the 2008 election.
Those darn Russians. What a bunch of rascals! Funny how they knew who was going to win when every expert in this country was saying Hillary in a walk...
Dang clever. Funny their own country is such a mess, with all that cleverness and foresight.
Wait until they hack Oprah's emails....
Trump did after all promise to drain the swamp. He better hurry up because the swamp is now actively trying to take him out first.
They othered Palin, Romney and McCain, even after McCain spent decades sucking up to the press. Why wouldn't they other Trump.
Unknown -- So you rely on them but you expect them to lie to you.
David Baker: I wouldn't put Jeff Sessions in that category. Yet he rolled over - for virtually nothin'. Very disappointing.
I dunno, was it a rollover? He recused himself from any investigations into any matters relating to the presidential campaign. I.e., the nothingburger hysteria. (It's not like he doesn't have a free hand to go on investigating the hell out of anything else, lol.) You may be right, but I'll see how it plays out before I go all Eeyore about this.
BREAKING NEWS: RUSSIAN ENVOY DID HIS DAMN JOB
"Unknown -- So you rely on them but you expect them to lie to you."
No, I expect them to report the truth. I don't depend on them. Cross reference and do your own research. Use your brain, don't believe everything, don't disbelieve everything either. Wait and see if more info comes to light that may reaffirm other reporting, etc. etc.
exiledonmainstreet said, "You know why I like this president more and more every day? Because he fights."
It's not just that, and unfortunately some of his responses seem churlish, but it's that he doesn't always hit with a ham fist. Sometimes it's with a whipped cream pie, and it makes the other team just look silly. As with the Schumer - Putin pic.
I thought last November's election was the revolt of the normal people against a Democrat party lurching (and I'm using that word deliberately) into ever more extreme positions. No, Trump isn't "normal" but to normal people he seems more normal than Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. Trump is way closer to normal than Rachel Maddow. Trump is more normal than Wolf Bitzer. He's way more normal than Mika lotsa-consonants.
So I think you're on to something, Althouse. But I also think it'll get worse -- maybe much worse -- before it gets better. I wonder if some big outfit like the Times or the Post or CNN need to go broke before they wake up.
The Dems may not see this as their only hope, but they see it as their best hope. It remains to be seen whether the Democrats and the leftmedia with their phony accusations and nonsense can wear Trump and his associates down. This last week he seems to not be carrying the fight to the Democrats and the press even though he has plenty of ammunition. That is a mistake.
Democrat elected officials and a large segment of their base have decided that distaste for Trump provides them with an excuse for unethical and dishonest behavior. Leaking classified material, OK. Making absurd allegations about Trump's supposed relationship with the Russians, OK. Creating strained relationship with a dangerous nuclear power, OK. Falsely claiming that Russians "hacked the election," OK. Etc.
Most despicable, as always, are the leftmediaswine. In the midst of generating the anti-Russian hysteria, they pointedly ignore Bill's $500k Russian speeches, Hillary's uranium deal, Ted Kennedy's efforts to recruit Russians to defeat Reagan, extensive lobbying by Democrats, including the Podesta family, on behalf of the Russians and their interests, Obama's open mic fiasco, etc.
This is a dangerous, irresponsible game they are playing with our country. Hopefully, they have miscalculated the number of ignoramuses who can be expected to go along with them.
Hahaha, some people's "normal" is other people's crazy.
Jeff Sessions recusal frees up his time to investigate Hillary's professional use of a personal email server, her professional use of Blackberry phones purchased off of ebay, her use of her non-profit to sell influence, and Obama's deal with Iran.
I'm not sure things are normal.
European Parliament voted to end visa free travel for Americans. This is bad for corporations & business travel. Bad for airlines & tourism.
Sweden & the Baltic states are worried about Russia. NATO seems shaky. will see how it shakes out, but not normal times.
Via Rantburg:
#9 VIDEO: Awkward silence after Pelosi asked if she’s ever met with Russians
After Nancy Pelosi accused Republicans of “splitting hairs” over Jeff Sessions’ reported meetings with the Russian ambassador, she did the very same thing when she was asked a similar question.
“You’ve been in Congress a little bit and you’re in leadership, have you ever met with the Russian ambassador?” Politico reporter Jake Sherman asked Pelosi on Friday.
After an awkwardly long silence, Pelosi answered, “Not with this Russian ambassador, no,” before quickly trying to move on.
“Is it normal to meet with ambassadors?” Sherman asked.
“Yeah,” Pelosi responded.
"It's so sad, and so negative. So backward-looking and devoid of promise."
Are you kidding. This is just the start to Trumpgate which will be bigger than Watergate. Get your popcorn and soda.
Trumpies love Trump warts and all.
The rest of the us want Trump out of the White House because we know he is a con-man.
As they say, to each their own.
What is sad is Trump is the person who has finally divided America.
Pffft, Clinton and Obama were also con men.
No biggie.
Unknown, you are being typically disingenuous. You know very well it wasn't Trump who divided the nation but you Prog-libs. According to recent polls [not that we can trust them] most Americans are ready to move on. You die-hard Trump haters are making yourselves look increasingly pathetic. And desperate.
"Are you kidding. This is just the start to Trumpgate which will be bigger than Watergate. Get your popcorn and soda."
Sure, sweetie. And just wait until Jill Stein finishes that recount in Michigan, you'll see too!
And the electors will be faithless. Just wait!
You'd think someone with as bad a track record as you would have the humility to stop with the premature gloating. You've beclowned yourself so many times, shown yourself to be such a malevolent fool - and still you persist.
Because you're a dolt. Dumb and arrogant is a bad combination.
One can not love Trump
But LOVE what he's doing to the demoncrats. And the LSM. And the Civil Service, which is not so civil.
So be careful of the net you cast.
There isn't enough popcorn, on that we agree.
Unknown said... [hush][hide comment]
"Reactions over this trumped-up scandal and the incessant media coverage have varied from fury to disgust to confusion among my connections, but nobody is finding it a plus for the Democrats. Nobody. Not even the Democrats! "
Trump's scandals have nothing to do with Democrats, Trump's scandals are not good for America. Thank goodness the Press is doing their job and not giving in to pressure from the right to suppress reporting about Trump.
3/3/17, 10:59 AM
Hey Einstein, if the press had done their jobs over the last eight years we would not have Trump now. Obama would have had to actually be President instead of playing one on TV. Hillary would have not dared to run due to the public understanding YEARS ago of what a disaster she and her family are. A real, viable Democrat would have had a chance at POTUS and no possibility of Trump. Let that sink in. Had the press done their job for the last 8 years and not the last eight days, NO TRUMP.
Todd,
Your comment is ignorant. To otherwise engage youwould be a waste of my time.
@Unknown re your 10:48 bullshit:
Please explain the "Trump/Putin connection" you claim the media has documented. If you refer only to the preexisting relationship, however tenuous, of some Trump campaign staffers with things Russian, what are we to make of Bill's $500k speaking fees from Russians in 2010 while Hillary was Sec of St? How about the Podesta family's lobbying for Russians? How about the six or seven figure donations to the Clinton Foundation? Can you come up with any comparably brazen sellouts from the Trump camp?
No, you can't. And let's drop the crap about the election shall we? All the graft went to the Clintons presupposing a Hillary win. Nobody supposed Trump would win. There is no evidence Russians "hacked the election." Even the "evidence" that Russians hacked the DNC comes from sources responsible for illegally leaking classified material to the media. Talking to Russians isn't illegal. Peddling influence and classified material is.
You are a malevolent, sociopathic troll pimping unfiltered propaganda for the Democrats. Give it a rest!
Those who would see our democracy destroyed because they have some desire for revenge ( for what, Obama?) are the truly abnormal ones that made an unsuitable fraud President...Seeing Red.
Saw that picture of Schumer and Putin. I think that was a classified donut Schumer was holding. We need to investigate.
Unknown said...
"You do understand that at some point someone with any level of introspection would question if it is indeed the "rest of the country" that is abnormal..."
Althouse seems to see people who oppose (for damn good reason) Trump as abnormal, we who oppose him see your adoration of him as abnormal. So now half of the country sees the other half as nuts. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
3/3/17, 11:21 AM
Adore? LOL. Not I little kitten, not I. I do admire him though. He beat the Clinton machine and the MSM and the RINOs to get the brass ring. He is also upsetting all the right folks and has done a nice, well deserved smack-down on the MSM and looks to be having fun doing it. His early steps as President have already started to undo the last 8 years of lawlessness so there is that too. Adore? No but I could see where others might have those feelings. It an't in the same league as a "tingle up the leg" but for some, it will do.
What was your position when the Republicans announced opposition to all things Obama at the very beginning of 2009. Did you condemn the Republicans in the same way? And if not, why not?
My recollection, which could be wrong, is that you took the view that the Republicans were perfectly justified in complete opposition to Obama, despite the fact that his mandate was much stronger than Trump's, that the Democrats were cry babies, and that indeed, the Democrats were at fault for forcing through Obamacare without any Republican votes. Do I recall correctly?
If so, why the different treatment.
I would prefer for the Democratic Party to find something strong and positive to offer us in the next election ...
The Democratic Party's political strategy for flipping the Rust Belt states away from our President Trump is to advocate the establishment of "sanctuary cities" for illegal aliens.
A lot of Rust Belt citizens who voted for Trump in 2016 might be inspired by the "sanctuary cities" cause to flip to voting for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020.
The swing voters in the Rustbelt states who do want "sanctuary cities" will recognize that they will have to vote against Trump's re-election.
Hombre, if you haven't read the massive amount of investigative journaling regarding the Trump/Putin connection, I'm not going to waste my time trying to catch you up. I've given you a link, but I doubt you will take their word for it either, as it doesn't fit your narrative.
Politifact, a Pulitzer Prize winning organization breaks it down.
Hire Andrew McCarthy as special prosecutor for Russia stuff. Appoint Chris Christie to investigate the Clinton stuff. Watch the sparks fly!!
Unknown said...
Todd,
Your comment is ignorant. To otherwise engage youwould be a waste of my time."
Why is it ignorant? Expound on that, otherwise it just might look as if you are intellectually incapable of devising an argument.
Btw, that Trump tweet was hilarious.
"Pulitzer prize winning Polifact" is shit, as Eugene Volokh (not a Trump supporter) demonstrated:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/05/fact-checking-politifacts-fact-check-of-trumps-crime-is-rising-claim/?utm_term=.f6af0a5745a8
But it's not surprising at all that Inga eats their offal right up. Stupid and dishonest people do.
IMO political power cycles every 8 years or so regardless of the history. What makes it not do that is one set of people really screwing the pooch. AKA the modern democrats who have become a fringe thinking set with little to no room for a normal middle class person to thrive. That will only change for them in an election where the y discard a Reid and a Pelosi for some younger minds without all the baggage and experience. Probably an improvement in wisdom though.
Stephen: What was your position when the Republicans announced opposition to all things Obama at the very beginning of 2009.
Yeah, Stephen, it's all just "opposition". Opposing what one considers to be bad legislation is exactly the same thing as full-on hysterical Soviet level witch-hunting.
But I understand why you think as you do - after all, in the Newspeak dictionary (remember the goal of Newspeak is to reduce a language's vocabulary to an absolute crude minimum), only the single word "opposition" -- no qualifiers or related words providing shades of distinction and nuance -- is available for your use.
Also, crazy people can't see how their behavior is different in any way from the behavior of sane people, even though the differences are glaringly obvious to sane people.
"Also, crazy people can't see how their behavior is different in any way from the behavior of sane people, even though the differences are glaringly obvious to sane people."
So true.
exiledonmainstreet said...
"Pulitzer prize winning Polifact"
I am not sure how valid crime statistics are outside of murder. I was associated with 3 violent crimes in the past few years. Working with the police was full of police gotchas letting them shuffle the crime into the "too busy to look at it" basket. And the end result every time was go pay a lawyer you'll never be able to afford if you want any justice. I think the more telling statistic would be how many people don't report a crime because of the bureaucracy or because they have a debt felony from not paying their ATT bill one month. The greater the bureaucracy the more actual crime that goes unreported.
You should go see the article over at the Weekly Standard.
Obama, in the last week of office, altered the order of U.S. attorney's who would take over in the event of a recusal of the Attorney General.
Obama and the Democrats planned to demand Sessions recusal, putting an Obama/Erick Holder lackey in charge.
Plan is obvious: Force Trump to Resign with phony, trumped up charges.
Sessions expertly navigated around the land mind.
Trump needs to take a blow torch to D.C.
Unknown: "Hombre, if you haven't read the massive amount of investigative journaling regarding the Trump/Putin connection,...."
I have read extensively, including your link. You are obviously not a lawyer. Perhaps you are one of the ignoramuses I mentioned in my 12:54 post. If so, I apologize for saying you are malevolent.
I'm not going to Fisk all the eminently fiskable Politifact tripe. Suffice to say there is no way the "intelligence agencies" can know that Putin was directly involved in the alleged Russian election related activities, or that his motives were pro-Trump. All they can do is speculate and the speculation is counter intuitive in light of the consensus that Trump had no chance. If on the outside chance they had actual evidence of Putin's intentions, it could have only been gleaned from extremely highly placed intelligence sources. I doubt that even Obama appointees would jeopardize such assets for political gain.
Take a look at the other points, either "uncorroborated," "we don't know," or so what. It is not a fact check. It is advocacy for partisan dimwits. Contact with "intelligence" officials, no evidence. Current "business dealings," no evidence.
My "narrative" is not like yours. Like Althouse, I am tired of the bullshit. Like Althouse, I approach the conflict as a lawyer looking for evidence. Frankly, I cannot believe you would offer up that Politifact link to a thread populated in large part by lawyers. If you had any sense or any integrity, you would be embarrassed.
Hombre, if you had any integrity, you would admit that there may be fire behind all the smoke, but you live in an alternate reality, so I'll give you a pass on integrity. I hope you aren't too shocked when the investigations are over and we all see what they've discovered.
Unknown said...
"Also, crazy people can't see how their behavior is different in any way from the behavior of sane people, even though the differences are glaringly obvious to sane people."
So true."
Yes, it is. Rioting, screaming, wearing idiotic pussy hats, calling in bomb threats to Jewish community centers to make it look like Trump supporters are anti-Semitic, lying about "hate crimes," getting hysterical about the Russians while ignoring the Iranians - ah, yes, those are the actions of totally sane people.
"Perhaps you are one of the ignoramuses I mentioned in my 12:54 post. If so, I apologize for saying you are malevolent."
Unknown/Inga demonstrates everyday that it is possible to be both an ignoramus and malevolent. So no apology is necessary.
It has become impossible to find any other news about the world.
When media like the NYT virtually declare war on a president, why do they act surprised that he reacts? They have publicly taken sides but want us to believe they are objective? Really, how stupid do they think we are?
@sane unknown: You need to distinguish yourself from insane Unknown.
exiled @ 2:12: Well said. Thank you. I stand corrected.
>>Politifact, a Pulitzer Prize winning organization breaks it down.
Albert Einstein said that arguing from authority was a logical fallacy.
Unknown (the insane one): "Hombre, if you had any integrity, you would admit that there may be fire behind all the smoke, ...."
It has been my experience in the political arena - and I have plenty - that the purpose of smoke is virtually always to obscure. In any case, smoke is not evidence.
"May be fire" is enough for you, the leftmediaswine, the other Democrats and some Republicans to put the stability of the Republic at risk. I would call that partisan lunacy, not integrity. If you could defeat the man on the issues, you wouldn't resort to calumny.
On February 13, 2017, The Washington Post published an article with the long title (emphasis added)
=====
Justice Department warned White House that Flynn could be vulnerable to RUSSIAN BLACKMAIL, officials say
=====
The article reported that three officials --
1) Acting Attorney General Susan YATES
2) CIA Director John BRENNAN and
3) Director of National James CLAPPER
-- were concerned that Michael Flynn was vulnerable to RUSSIAN BLACKMAIL because the Russian Ambassador had heard in a telephone conversation with him that Flynn had violated THE LOGAN ACT. The idea here seems to be that the Russian Ambassador himself had wire-tapped the telephone conversation and might use the recording to reveal Flynn's violation of THE LOGAN ACT.
Below are excerpts from the Washington Post article:
==========
The acting attorney general [YATES] informed the Trump White House late last month that she believed Michael Flynn .... was potentially vulnerable to RUSSIAN BLACKMAIL ....
In the waning days of the Obama administration, James R. CLAPPER Jr., who was the director of national intelligence, and John BRENNAN, the CIA director at the time, shared YATES’s concerns and concurred with her recommendation to inform the Trump White House. They feared that “Flynn had put himself in a compromising position” ...
YATES ... considered Flynn’s comments in the intercepted call to be “highly significant” and “potentially illegal” ...
YATES and OTHER INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS suspected that Flynn could be in violation of an obscure U.S. statute known as THE LOGAN ACT ....
At the same time, YATES and other law enforcement officials knew there was little chance of bringing against Flynn a case related to THE LOGAN ACT ....
Word of the calls LEAKED out on Jan. 12 in an op-ed by Post columnist David Ignatius ... citing THE LOGAN ACT. ....
The internal debate over how to handle the intelligence on Flynn and [Ambassador] Kislyak came to a head on Jan. 19, Obama’s last full day in office.
YATES, CLAPPER and BRENNAN argued for briefing the incoming administration so the new president could decide how to deal with the matter. ....
FBI Director James B. Comey initially opposed notification, citing concerns that it could complicate the agency’s investigation.
A turning point came after January 23, when Spicer, in his first official media briefing, again was asked about Flynn’s communications with Kislyak. ...
YATES again raised the issue with Comey, who now backed away from his opposition to informing the White House. YATES and the senior career national security official spoke to McGahn, the White House counsel ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-warned-white-house-that-flynn-could-be-vulnerable-to-russian-blackmail-officials-say/2017/02/13/fc5dab88-f228-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?utm_term=.bb148880cb72
The stability of the Republic is put at risk by being co-opted by a hostile foreign power, not by telling the truth about the current president.
>>The stability of the Republic is put at risk by being co-opted by a hostile foreign power
NOW you are worried about hostile foreign powers? Like, say, Iran?
>>not by telling the truth about the current president.
NOW you want to know the truth about our president?
How convenient.
Obama, Yates, Brennan and Clapper wanted the information to leak. That was the essence of their conversations on January 19.
FBI Director Comey did NOT want the information to leak.
To compel Comey to give way, Yates prompted a reporter to ask Spicer, at a press conference on January 23, about the Flynn-Kislyak telephone conversation.
Then, after the press conference, Yates pressed Comey again, arguing to him that the issue had been brought up at the press conference, so it no longer should be kept secret. At this point, Comey capitulated.
"With a 'normal' president, one could just report what he says and does and maybe occasionally point out inconsistencies or errors, and it will look like 'normal' press coverage. But if you feel compelled to point out Trump's repeated inconsistencies and errors, let alone his seeming intentional falsehoods, it is bound to look like 'abnormal' press coverage. But it is really the same coverage, but with a bizarre object of that coverage. The other thing is, you can bet that most of the corporate media ownership is favorable to Trump, not opposed to him. They would love those tax cuts, "believe me". There is plenty of disincentive for editorializing against Trump.
"The stability of the Republic is put at risk by being co-opted by a hostile foreign power"
Like Iran?
Stephen @ 1:23: You are mistaken. From the Washington Post:
McConnell made his remarks in an interview that appeared in the National Journal on Oct. 23, 2010 — nearly two years after Obama was elected president. The interview took place on the eve of the midterm elections. The interview was relatively short, so we will print it in its entirety, with key portions highlighted.
NJ: You’ve been studying the history of presidents who lost part or all of Congress in their first term. Why?
McConnell: In the last 100 years, three presidents suffered big defeats in Congress in their first term and then won reelection: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and the most recent example, Bill Clinton. I read a lot of history anyway, but I am trying to apply those lessons to current situations in hopes of not making the same mistakes.
NJ: What have you learned?
McConnell: After 1994, the public had the impression we Republicans over promised and under delivered. We suffered from some degree of hubris and acted as if the president was irrelevant and we would roll over him. By the summer of 1995, he was already on the way to being reelected, and we were hanging on for our lives.
NJ: What does this mean now?
McConnell: We need to be honest with the public. This election is about them, not us. And we need to treat this election as the first step in retaking the government. We need to say to everyone on Election Day, “Those of you who helped make this a good day, you need to go out and help us finish the job.”
N.J.: What’s the job?
McConnell: The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.
NJ: Does that mean endless, or at least frequent, confrontation with the president?
McConnell: If President Obama does a Clintonian backflip, if he’s willing to meet us halfway on some of the biggest issues, it’s not inappropriate for us to do business with him.
NJ: What are the big issues?
McConnell: It is possible the president’s advisers will tell him he has to do something to get right with the public on his levels of spending and [on] lowering the national debt. If he were to heed that advice, he would, I imagine, find more support among our conference than he would among some in the Senate in his own party. I don’t want the president to fail; I want him to change. So, we’ll see. The next move is going to be up to him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/11/when-did-mitch-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/?utm_term=.85fc822668ea
The Psychological Impact of Coping with the Election of Donald J. Trump, Journal of Applied Neurosis, Vol 3: 1212 - 1223 (2017).
Abstract:
The subjects here exhibited paranoid delusions of victimhood, following the recent Presidential election of 2016. Uniformly, the subjects (P=582) were Hillary Clinton supporters who, after reading gobs of polling data and front page new articles of the NYTimes, believed that Ms. Clinton would win the election. After negative results were recorded, and certified by the US Congress, 78% of the subjects went into clinical depression, while the other 22% jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. We performed a randomized controlled trial to determine whether subjects would benefit from standard doses of Thorazine, to help combat idealized feelings of psychosis or whether triple the standard dose plus Vodka would ameliorate clinical symptoms. The results were inconclusive, as it appears that Russian agents, hacked into our laboratory notebooks.
The whole business is a negotiation.
Behind the smokescreens its all a fight over FedGov reform.
The Breitbart article here on the Monday WSJ editorial makes the point -
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/02/wall-street-journal-globalist-siren-song-to-trump-abandon-steve-bannon-and-well-love-you/
Leave out the personalities, and leave out Brietbart's own editorializing.
Upshot is if Trump & co. limit themselves to tax reduction and regulatory rollback, all will be well.
The sticking points are
- immigration reform - both H1b and illegal immigration enforcement ("the wall") seem to be the unacceptable lines that can't be crossed.
- Tariffs/NAFTA/TPP
So its a negotiation, conducted in public via "fake news" and Russians and unhappy women.
Thats the GOP part of the system anyway.
The remainder wants desperately to keep the regulations, and the dependent structures, as they live off them.
Trump's first act as president the minute after he took the oath should have been to fire every single Obama appointee in every single department of the executive branch. His second act should have been to put into empty rooms with nothing in them every single Obama appointee who transitioned into the civil service before Obama's term was finished.
Unless the Republican Party in Congress is just fucking stupid (yet to be disproved), this media assault has no chance of harming either Trump or the Republican Party. It really is almost nothing at this point but pure Hail Mary passes after the final second has ticked off the clock. I have never seen a party go completely batshit insane the way the Democrats are doing right at this moment, and if they don't wise up, they will suffer a catastrophic mid-term election by losing every single senate race in a state Trump won.
Bay Area Guy: Bravo!
"Chuck opined,
"Who do you think is going to write a replacement for Obamacare? Trump doesn't know the first goddam thing about health care or insurance. He's the barking, car-chasing dog, who caught the car. "
The irony fairly screams down the quarter mile. The barking dog part. Not the Trump doesn't know shit about heath insurance gratuitous assertion.
I assert that he probably does know something about health insurance. Having to provide it to his employees.
"Do the Democrats see their only hope as getting an investigation going and somehow reliving Watergate?"
The fallout from Watergate is what made me a conservative.
In '74, after Nixon resigned at the insistence of Republicans, The Democrats made major gains in the house and senate. The GOP lost 3 senate seats and 48 house seats. State house swings were huge, IIRC.
The Democrats green lighted the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam. As the fall of Saigon approached in 1975, the South Vietnamese begged the US to live up to its commitments and give them weapons. Ford agreed, but was overruled by the Dem congress.
Hence the refugee crisis of the late 70s, and, of course, Pol Pot's genocide.
Ford lost to Jimmy Carter. Carter was blindsided by the mullah's deposing our ally the Shah, and by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The invasion of Afghanistan gave us the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. The odious, theocratic, America-hating regime of the Mullahs is still in power. Obama green lighted their nuke production.
Democrats are insane if they want to replay this sequence of events.
Well, at this point the Washington Post is declaring Trump to be Hitler. There's walking back from that. Hope you got your money's worth Bezos.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/02/adolf-hitler-also-published-a-list-of-crimes-committed-by-groups-he-didnt-like/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.fc62ded235bf
Static Ping said...
Well, at this point the Washington Post is declaring Trump to be Hitler"
Oh, for God's sake.
When has Trump ever advocated for the elimination of an entire people? What countries does he want to invade?
They are insane. Our elites, the people who are so sure they should be running our lives, are certifiable.
"Our elites, the people who are so sure they should be running our lives, are certifiable."
They aren't crazy. They are just cynical, and amoral. These are lines they are feeding you.
There is a portion of the public being driven to irrationality as a result, but these are the audience not the players.
"The NYT and CNN aren't bashing moderate Democrats for their compromises, or political reality."
-- That's because there are practically none left after the vast purging of the Blue Dogs.
Not yet tired of the winning!
Here is my speculation:
Susan Yates was counting on Hillary Clinton winning and promoting Yates from Acting Attorney General to actual Attorney General. When Clinton lost, Yates became immediately hysterical and gradually deranged.
Yates ordered FBI Director James Comey to develop evidence that Clinton lost because Russian manipulated the election. The FBI, subordinate to the Justice Department, monitors and wire-taps the Russian Embassy in Washington DC, and so Yates focused her own attention on the Russian Embassy as a source of intelligence.
Yates assembled enough Embassy intelligence to convince President Obama to impose sanctions on Russia on December 29. In particular, Obama expelled Russian diplomats from the Embassy.
Yates anticipated that a Trump associate would re-assure the Russian Embassy that the sanctions would be removed. Yates ordered Comey to intensify wire-tapping of the Russian Embassy and constant covert surveillance of all activities of the Embassy's top staff. All past records of FBI surveillance were reviewed thoroughly.
Yates intended -- if she managed to catch such communications before Trump was inaugurated -- to use the Logan Act as a club to beat Trump's Administration until she would be replaced.
As soon as Yates was informed about the telephone conversation between Michael Flynn and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Yates took the transcript immediately to CIA Director John Brennan and then to DNI James Clapper, asking them to go with her to President Obama to discuss political tactics.
.... to be continued ....
"Well, at this point the Washington Post is declaring Trump to be Hitler."
Someone should do a side by side comparison of WaPo headlines and the stupidest liberal troll commenting on their articles, because I get the strangest suspicion that is where their editorial insight comes from.
I hope Trump doesn't go wobbly on us. I expect the GOP to go wobbly, but if Trump keeps on the offensive, GOP wobbliness may not matter.
My principle concern is the GOP Congress going wobbly, They are not in the habit of fighting back.
I hope Bannon can put some iron in some spines. McCain is hopeless as the last pat of his mind still working is his ego.
Scrolling through the comments after I got home from work, I visualize Inga sitting at her keyboard with 3 x 5 cards of DNC talking points
Via Insty:
turns out the senator spoke to the Russian ambassador in one of the allegedly scandalous "meetings" on the invitation of the Obama administration.
Reliving Watergate??
THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE DOING.
What else do you call an administration (Obama) using the tools and power of the government to conduct electronic surveillance and smear tactics against the presidential campaign of their opponents in the other party (who happen also to be U.S. citizens) for partisan and electoral gain? All of which is highly illegal.
The Obama Administration's criminal abuse of power a la Watergate, but far more extensive than Nixon ever dreamed of -- THAT is the real story here.
"McCain is hopeless as the last pat of his mind still working is his ego."
Not his ego so much as his wallet I think.
Gee, I wonder if DJT's latest tweets demanding investigations of Schumer and Pelosi denials of personal links with Russia will prompt stories? Here, of course they will reinforce the many nutjob calls for investigations into every grievance folks can think of relating to Democrats in their (on average long) lifetimes.
Angel-Dyne:
IMO, Sessions was outmaneuvered, first by the media, then by his own Justice Department's so-called "ethics" panel (ethics for you, but not for thee) - of course, they advised recusal. They're virtually all Obama operatives, a 5th column intent on bringing Trump down, or at the very least, causing so much trouble via headlines as to render the president's agenda the mouse that squeaked.
Sessions is in over his head. He should've seen this coming from a mile away.
readering forgets (I suppose) that all the calls for investigations of Democrats go nowhere because they are not expected to behave in an ethical manner.
Hillary still has a potential felony hanging over her head and I think Sessions should turn the FBI loose. I think Comey faced an agent revolt last summer when he spoke out.
I think there is a lot of pentup enthusiasm for taking on Hillary.
They're virtually all Obama operatives,
That was Bush's mistake and Trump should clean house tomorrow.
readering: "Here, of course they will reinforce the many nutjob calls for investigations into every grievance folks can think of relating to Democrats in their (on average long) lifetimes"
Yes, a lefty in this political environment just wrote that. Without irony.
I agree with Michael K. In particular the administration will receive no good intelligence estimates until every person hired by James Clapper is entirely out of government.
Continued from 3:52 PM
Yates initially intended to use the Logan Act as a club to beat the Trump Administration until she inevitably would be replaced as Acting Attorney General. However, the Justice Department's legal experts advised her that the Logan Act was an obsolete, useless, ludicrous instrument, especially against the members of an in-coming Presidential Administration.
Therefore, Yates had to adjust her plan. Suffering still from hysteria and derangement, Yates imagined that the public would be alarmed by the possibility that the Russian Embassy might BLACKMAIL Trump associates with secret information that they had violated the Logan Act.
However, when Yates tried this argument on Brennan and Clapper, they recognized its absurdity. Still, Yates clung to this idea, and days passed while Brennan and Clapper developed a different tactic for using the Flynn-Kislyak wiretap against the Trump Administration.
It was not until January 19, Obama's last day in office, that the new plan was formulated. Obama, Clapper, Brennan and Yates together would inform the new President Trump that Flynn, his new National Security Advisor, was subject to RUSSIAN BLACKMAIL. Then, as Trump ignored this obviously stupid warning for days and weeks, Obama loyalists in the Intelligence Community would gradually leak to journalists concerns that Trump's oblivious disorganization was allowing the USA's national security to be endangered by RUSSIAN BLACKMAIL against his top associates.
However, FBI Director James Comey was informed that Obama intended to inform Trump about the investigation of the Russian Embassy, and Comey objected. Comey argued that the FBI's investigation should remain as secret as possible for as long as possible. Continuing secrecy was necessary to develop an adequate assessment of the Russian Embassy's improper activities. The Trump Administration would be informed, Comey argued, in due time.
Surprised by Comey's unexpected objection, Obama decided NOT to inform Trump on January 20.
On that day, Obama, Clapper and Brennan left their government offices, and only Yates remained,
... to be continued ...
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