For one thing, they watch Tucker Carlson: Our discourse has been in shambles for decades. For decades, voters have been fed all kinds of crap, depending on which news orgs they frequent.
How do voters get misled? Consider the outrageous behavior which occurred at the start of Tuesday night's Tucker Carlson program. To watch the excitement, click here.
Carlson's program airs at 8 PM Eastern on Fox. On Tuesday night, 3.3 million people were watching, almost twice as many as were watching Chris Hayes. Many more people watched the rebroadcast at midnight.
Millions of people were grossly misled by Carlson's program that night.
At the start of the program, Fox intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge aired a brief, bungled report about those missing text messages and that frightening "secret society."
The utter foolishness of these themes has become apparent since Tuesday night. But Carlson brought on Joe diGenova, and diGenova proceeded to stage an outrageous nervous and mental breakdown.
DiGenova was a major, hang-him-high pundit from the Clinton impeachment days; so was his wife, Victoria Toensing. When major figures behave the way diGenova did Tuesday night, it should be front-page news in the nation's newspapers.
After Herridge's short report, Carlson introduced diGenova. The Crazy started right away. This should be front-page news in and of itself:
CARLSON (1/23/18): Joe diGenova is a former US attorney in DC and he joins us tonight. Joe, thanks a lot for coming on.Just that quickly, diGenova moved from "suggests" to "shows." According to diGenova, it was just as he had always said:
DIGENOVA: My pleasure.
CARLSON: So on Special Report, a little over an hour ago, Ron Johnson, the senator who is head of the Homeland Security Committee, suggested that the "secret society" referenced in these texts may have been an actual thing and it may have met off-site away from the FBI secretly.
We don't know more than that. What does this suggest to you?
DIGENOVA: It suggests, as we have said from the beginning, that there was a brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and if she didn't win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely-created crime.
Everything that we've seen from these texts and from all the facts developing shows that the FBI and senior DOJ officials conspired to violate the law and to deny Donald Trump his civil rights.
"The FBI and senior DOJ officials conspired to violate the law and to deny Donald Trump his civil rights," diGenova said. More specifically, "there was a brazen plot...to frame Donald Trump with a falsely-created crime."
Carlson asked what the motive would be. Luckily, diGenova knew:
DIGENOVA: The motive would be that they didn't like Donald Trump. They didn't think he was fit to be president. And they were going to do everything within their power to exonerate Hillary Clinton and if she lost, to frame Donald Trump with a false crime because they didn't think he should be president.Those are remarkable claims. Carlson took them in stride. As he continued, hr raised the question of the missing text messages, producing this exchange:
CARLSON (continuing directly): What do you make of the claim that five months of text messages between Strzok and Lisa Page have somehow disappeared, as Lois Lerner's emails did, as Hillary Clinton's emails did?As it turns out, it isn't just messages between Strzok and Page which seem to have been lost. As the Washington Post reports (again) this morning, a technical glitch caused messages to be lost from thousands of cellphones, not just from those embattled figures' phones, or so the Justice Department claims.
DIGENOVA: As an old United States attorney who has watched obstruction of justices over the years, that explanation from the bureau is ludicrous.
Those texts were either purposely destroyed—period. They were purposely destroyed. Moreover, they exist somewhere. I can assure you the NSA has them. Other companies have them. Verizon has them. AT&T.
Carlson's viewers weren't alerted to this. Instead, they saw diGenova continue to rave. Soon, he stated the need for another special counsel and stated his key claim again:
"We have long since passed the time when we need to have just congressional investigations for this," he said. "Make no mistake about it. A group of FBI and DOJ people were trying to frame Donald Trump of a falsely-created crime."
Before this segment was done, diGenova had warned his host about the ongoing threat posed by Strzok and Page. The ongoing danger shaped up like this:
CARLSON: Would they be cleared to see classified information?DiGenova didn't seem to be speaking ironically about "the secret society."
DIGENOVA: I certainly cannot imagine how they would still be cleared to see classified—
CARLSON: But they have access to former colleagues, of course—or their present colleagues in the building.
DIGENOVA: Yes. Members of the secret society, no doubt, continue to still talk to one other.
Eventually, diGenova's angry ranting was done. The segment ended like this:
CARLSON: And last question, since you've been here a long time and worked in this world for a long time. Are we right to have real questions about the integrity of our justice system watching this?The FBI has lost almost all integrity. Also, James B. Comey—Comey the God—is "America's most dirty cop."
DIGENOVA: Regrettably, we're at a point now where the FBI has lost almost all of its credibility and, regrettably, its integrity as a result of the conduct of James Comey, who remains America's most dirty cop.
CARLSON: Terrifying. Joe diGenova, thank you very much for that.
DIGENOVA: Thank you.
The situation was "terrifying," Carlson said, He thanked his guest for sharing.
When major figures behave this way in major forums, it should be front-page news. We've said this for decades now, but the New York Times and the Washington Post choose to avert their gaze.
Our discourse has been in shambles for decades. How do voters get misled?
They get misled is these crazy ways. These deceptions are enabled by the silence of corporate lambs.
Full disclosure: We're so old that we can remember when Rachel Maddow was one of Carlson's sidekicks on his nightly MSNBC show.
People, we're just saying! Can you remember that?
"When major figures behave this way in major forums, it should be front-page news. We've said this for decades now, but the New York Times and the Washington Post choose to avert their gaze."
ReplyDeleteHow can Carlson call out this manufactured conspiracy theory as a pack of lies when the president himself tells bigger whoppers and no one is allowed to call him a liar?
Carlson's job was to give this guy a podium. He did that and nothing more. Somerby wants to implicate Maddow in a kind of guilt by association since they were once on the same show, but I don't think that is fair.
These guys apparently think they have to provide a chance for all sides to tell their stories unmolested. Elsewhere, Somerby argues that there should be polite discourse, where we listen to the outrageous statements of conservatives and then engage them. Here we see Carlson giving such people a chance to tell their lies. Isn't that exactly what Somerby wants?
There is so much wrong in that single paragraph that unpacking it cannot be done in sound-bites. Conservatives know that, and if you try, they just talk over you and repeat more crap. It is hopeless to try to refute this in real time, and yet you cannot keep them off the air either, and still be a free country.
Maybe the solution is for the NY Times to use its column inches to explain (1) why texts are different than emails, (2) what actually happened to the texts in question, (3) what was said about a secret society, (4) what evidence exists of any of the plots alleged, including one to exonerate Hillary, to remove Trump as president, etc. And then there will be enough space left over to say that yes, liberals do want to see Trump removed, but that doesn't mean they are traitors who are trying to enact a coup.
And this isn't the craziest stuff out there.
"Those are remarkable claims. "
ReplyDeleteThose are perfectly unremarkable claims. Only a complete idiot wouldn't notice the coordinated anti-Trump campaign perpetrated at every level of the US establishment.
A technical glitch, miraculously disappearing messages, eh? Right: move along, nothing to see here -- let's all together diagnose Trump's mental disorders. Nice going, Bob...
You don't belong here. Please go away.
Delete"...at every level of the US establishment."
DeleteAnd after he just gave the Establishment a big, sloppy, wet-kiss of tax breaks.
Just goes to show you, never trust a businessman.
The investigation stinks to high heaven and it's finally turning to exposing corruption at the highest levels on behalf of Queen Hillary, and eliminating the brief advantage Democrats had for the midterms.
DeleteI haven't seen anything yet that shows Trump colluded with the Russians in the stealing of the democrats' emails that were disclosed by Wikipedia. I think it's being blown way out of proportion so far by the so-called liberal media, and that isn't a good thing - I know Mueller is probing this with apparent miscroscopic scrutiny, so who knows what he will unravel, it's possible there is something. But, the snarky right wingers have made a Mt. Everest over an anthill about Clinton's emails, totally ridiculous. It would be nice if politics concerned arguments about what the best policy was, and analyses centered on the pros and cons, and the financial or other biases of the opposing parties, and who benefits and who gets hurt, etc. Intelligent discussion is a rarity.
DeleteThere are connections between Trump’s campaign and Assange including discussion of the timing of release and sharing if content before release. Roger Stone claims to know Guccifer and Bannon communicated with Assange. Hard to see how you can claim there is no connection.
DeleteI haven't seen these discussion between Trump campaign and Assange about the timing of the release and sharing content before it was released. What's the source of that? The Roger Stone allegation (again is this a paraphrase, what is exact source?) as you put it doesn't really establish actual collusion in stealing the emails and/or participating in their publication. Anything that gets me, but our side seems to downplay, or ignore, is that apparently, incredible ineptitude led to stealing some or all of the emails - that there was a suspicious email, someone from the democratic national committee called their tech expert who told them it was okay to open what turned out to be the worm, when he meant to say 'don't open it.' Plus there were warnings from the FBI that were ignored. This ineptitude wasn't Trump's fault. Plus we take it for granted that the Russians were behind the hack - maybe so, but it seems to be based on suppositions to some extent. I was skeptical when the CIA and Colin Powell assured us about WMDs in Iraq - there claims of proof seemed weak. There should be at least some skepticism when these guys say something we like to hear.
DeleteIt's your own fault if a thief breaks into your house because you should have had better locks? No, the thief is still a criminal. Seventeen US intelligence agencies agreed the Russians meddled. If you won't accept that, you are motivated to look the other way.Joseph Cannon has discussed the interconnections between Assange and Trump's team at length. Trump's public statements demonstrating prior access to the hacked emails are available for anyone to see.
DeleteIf you choose to believe Fox News version of the hacking while choosing to disbelieve all info that comes from the left, or the federal govt for that matter, there isn't much to talk about. They have arrested the Russians who did the hacking. But you think Russia wasn't involved?
On this particular subject, the main problem with y'all is that you will spout all kinds of drivel ("connections between Trump’s campaign and Assange" - wow, what a terrible crime!) while carefully avoiding the elephant in the room: incredible Democratic party corruption, revealed in the DNC emails.
DeleteFor as long as you choose to uphold your commitment to willful idiocy, you have no chance to recover. Life is not kind to the stupid.
See the embedded video from Dutch TV about their involvement in detecting and informing the US about Russian hacking.
DeleteMao, you are on the wrong side.
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2018/01/trump-in-dutch.html
what I am amazed at is how one side or the other can make sweeping claims about what or what did not happen in regards to the Russian issue BEFORE THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR HAS FINISHED HIS INVESTIGATION. anything you read in the news or see on TV may be or may not be the story. The only one that has access to all the facts (and probably many pieces of information that the media doesn't) is the special prosecutor's office. Let the man finish his investigation before jumping to conclusions.
DeleteSadly, in the end, it probably doesn't matter what he comes up with. There will be a segment of the population that will think they are right regardless of the findings.
Forgive me if I still have some faith in our institutions and in the ability of our law enforcement agencies to carry out impartial investigations and go where the evidence leads, even if it doesn't match well with their political views.
Sad!!
Thanks, but don't I think I'm going to join the side of zombies feeding their confirmation bias by youtube videos anytime soon.
DeleteWhen something is repeated endlessly by the NYT, WaPo, and the CNN - that the surest sign it's a big lie. Therefore: there's no "Russian hacking". Just like there were not WMD in Iraq, genocide in 2011 Libya, chemical attacks by the government in Syria last year, etc, etc, etc.
From www.samefacts.com:
Delete"1.“What elephant?” The meddling never happened, and if you think it did you’re a neocon (or neoliberal) McCarthyite Russophobic warmonger. That’s roughly the Trump line, but also the line of the Greenwald/TyT/BernieBro/Stein dirtbag left. [This needs no response other than a reference to already-published facts and the not-yet-published facts the intelligence community and the Mueller investigation have gathered and are now gathering, plus the frantic efforts of Trump & Co. and their friends in Congress and in the Fox/Breitbart wing of the alt-news business to cover things up.]"
@11:19 -- the special prosecutor isn't prosecuting the Russians. When the investigation concludes, it will be about Trump and his cronies, not Putin. Assange will still be out there, so will Greenwald and the other enablers of espionage against the USA.
Most recently, they identified Russian bots behind a flood of tweets urging Nunes to release his fake conspiracy theory memo. This meddling is ongoing. You cannot stand by and expect due process to clean up this mess.
Trump will get his due, but Trump isn't behind this ongoing attack on American electoral politics. We need to clean up our system by insisting that Facebook and Twitter vet and block Russian meddling, taking the word "fake news" out of our political vocabulary, and believing that a venial crook running for office remains a crook once elected. This is not the time to give Trump the benefit of any doubt. Mueller will provide the evidence and Congress will convict him, but in the meantime, we don't have to remain neutral about who and what he is. His character is obvious through his actions -- most recently the payoff to Stormy Daniels and the fact that his own wife doesn't want to have anything to do with him any more and is refusing to function as First Lady.
Trump is not being convicted by the press. He is being convicted by his own actions and by the testimony of his associates. You can believe what you see and hear from him, even if you don't want to believe the NY Times or Dutch investigators.
"Most recently, they identified Russian bots behind a flood of tweets urging Nunes to release his fake conspiracy theory memo."
DeleteRight. They being one of the many neocon/neoliberal McCarthyite Russophobic warmonger news-manufacturing operations.
"This needs no response"
Because you got no response. "the intelligence community" - ah, how nice: a community... Let's hold our hands and sing together with "17 intelligence agencies"...
Now, with all that nonsense out of the way, what about the incredible corruption in the Democratic party, as revealed in the DNC emails? Any thoughts on that?
Mao, you raise a point - who cares if Trump colluded with the Russians - which I
Deleteabove expressed skepticism about - given as you claim, without any substantiation, that the emails showed "incredible corruption in the Democratic party" (in bold print too, though using bold print or capital letters doesn't make the statement more true. I'm not in a position to refute or deny that the emails established this "incredible corruption" and certainly wouldn't accept you word for it, lacking any citations or sources. I'll take some time and return to this after checking it out myself. I note that the story about Syrian use of poison gas was fully hyped by the Trump administration.
"I note that the story about Syrian use of poison gas was fully hyped by the Trump administration."
DeleteWhat of it? Have I ever proclaimed the Trump admin the Guardian of the Truth and Righteousness? My point was about the role of the mass-media.
Mao, yes the mass media has accepted the Trump administration's claim that the Syrian government inflicted a chlorine gas attack - in spite of there being apparent reasons to be skeptical. I have never heard you proclaim the Trump admin is the Guardian of the Truth and Righteousness, but it seems oftentimes that you come close to it. Going back to the DNC emails - I found the WikiLeaks site that has them all. There are thousands. I read a few, seemed pretty innocuous. I don't have the time to spend the next 2 weeks reading thru all of them. Can you point out the specific ones that evidence the "incredible corruption in the Democratic party?" (or if you think that would be too burdensome, just a representative sample?
DeleteThe money laundering is real.
DeleteThe lying by Trump appointees to Congress regarding any connections to Russia are real.
Trump Jr. trying to collude with Russians is real.
The rest is still under investigation, and has not been confirmed, as of yet, by Mueller.
--------
I'm not much for predictions, but I'm pretty sure the answer to AC/ MA above will be "No".
I don't think anyone will be misled by Carlson's show. Liberals will recognize the garbage and conservatives will similarly recognize that these are the current defenses against the FBI's investigation of Trump. They will hear their own speaking to them in their own language.
ReplyDeleteNo one will be persuaded or informed. That means no one will be misled.
Liberals will be outraged and feel alive for a few moments. Conservatives will be outraged too and feel their blood flow more quickly through their veins. Both will pay slightly more attention to the commercials and it will be a win-win for all concerned.
Somerby thinks people get information from these shows. What a maroon.
anon 1:15, you don't seem to be from this planet
DeleteCogent criticism. Are you about to hit?
DeleteJust quick reaction, is what it is.
DeleteAfter seeing the Democrats vile, corrupt "John Doe" witch hunt against Republicans in Wisconsin for campaign "collusion" (spoiler alert, even if the charges were true, the "collusion" wasn't illegal), color me skeptical of the Mueller team of Clinton hacks looking into Russian "collusion" (spoiler alert, even if it happened it's not illegal).
ReplyDeleteHey Bob,
ReplyDeleteLiberals are not to blame because some voters in this country choose to follow their cultural resentments instead of using their brains. Some of us can tell the facts from what is fake. Because others choose not to, it is not the fault of liberals.
I do not watch Maddow and others, by the way.
Whatever became of Garrison Keillor?
ReplyDeletehttps://jezebel.com/garrison-keillor-allegedly-did-a-whole-lot-more-than-to-1822372616
He's on NPR reruns if you really miss him that much, imp.
DeleteHe's back in the news trying to justify his behavior by saying the woman in question seemed to be enjoying his advances. Pathetic
DeleteIt's remarkable how provocateurs like DiGenova can switch on a dime from being the ultimate insiders reporting information leaked to them by all their trusted sources inside the FBI (faithfully printed on the front page of the liberal NY Times no matter how many times they'd been burned before) to suddenly being victims of a vast deep state conspiracy by these shadowy figures inside the FBI. Oh poor Joe, I shudder for his soul when the devil finally comes to collect his due.
ReplyDelete***********
Late last month, former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas), former New York City Mayor (and 2012 Republican presidential candidate) Rudy Giuliani (R) and conservative former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova hinted that, based on "sources" within and their experience with FBI, there is a substantial likelihood that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
will be indicted for mishandling classified information stemming from her tenure as secretary of State.
*************
boy oh boy, those were fun days. BTW, where the fuck did Rudy go to?
"... liberal NY Times ...."
ReplyDeleteSnark, right?
DOJ office says it has found missing text messages of FBI officials
ReplyDeletehttp://thehill.com/homenews/administration/370711-justice-department-recovers-missing-fbi-agents-text-messages
Look at Comrade DinC chasing the shiny new white rabbit they manufactured to distract from the legitimacy of the investigation.
DeleteWhat the fuck do you care what was in those private text messages between two adults carrying on an affair?
On a different blog someone pointed out that those in secret societies don’t go around referring to them as such. They don’t mention them at all...because secret.
DeleteH/T to "skelig" at Media Matters:
DeleteSECRET SOCIETY CALENDAR:
9:00---10:00. Deep State meeting with Obama & Comey
10:00--11:00 Tea with Hillary & Sally Yates
11:00--12:00 Smuggle in illegal immigrants
12:00--1:00 Pizza/sex trafficking silent auction
1:00--2:00. Uranium giveaway
If members of the FBI and/or Justice Dept. went easy on Hillary in order to prevent Trump from becoming President, then the result was ironic. If Hillary had been charged with any crime (such as careless handling of classified material), she would have been replaced on the ticket and the Democrats would have defeated Trump.
ReplyDeleteBoy David, you really lop up the steaming bullshit they serve you no matter what.
DeleteDear mm : I wrote "If"
DeleteDavid doesn’t understand the concept of oversight. The FBI doesn’t have the power to “go easy” on anyone. There is accountability. Further, the FBI is neither monolithic nor partisan. That’s why what you suggest (“if”) is so stupid.
DeleteI read a lot about the emails. My understanding is they ended up with three of them that were in violation. These three were not marked Classified on top, but had a "C" in the margins of the doc. Remainder were later classified after the Shedevel first read them. So yeah, FBI complicity and lock her up.
DeleteYes, Comrade DinC, incredibly you wrote "if". And "if" the queen had balls she'd be king as well.
DeleteThere is so much wrong with what you wrote that I don't have the patience to discuss it with you anymore. It is hopeless to try to communicate with you as you inhabit planet Wingnutstan. There is no way to communicate with you. I just watch in astonishment as you now buy into the grotesque third act of this abominable administration as they attack the FBI and the free press. Go ahead, enjoy that shitstain you voted for as he commits obstruction of justice & witness tampering in broad daylight.
Mart — devil is spelled with an i. You should have stayed in school.
DeleteDavid apparently doesn't understand the concept of irony either. @7:17 PM - go join a spelling bee somewhere.
DeleteSpelling counts in life.
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