THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2022
We run on novelized tales: Is it possible that "the American experiment" is nearing some sort of an end?
Everything is possible, so why would you even ask? Having said that, let's move on:
The American experiment—broadly speaking, a "democratic" experiment—has been based, broadly speaking, on the belief that we humans could run our world on the basis of something resembling rationality, and also on an adherence to so-called Enlightenment values.
Have we humans ever been like that? Emerging evidence continues to tilt the answer strongly towards no. For starters, consider the first nine minutes of last night's Maddow Show.
Based on current estimates, you'll be able to read the transcript of Maddow's first nine minutes by sometime at the end of the next week. That's based on the current "sow-walk" procedures, in which MSNBC seems to be delaying transcript production by roughly one week's time.
Why would this NBC entity delay its transcripts like that? At this point, we'll take a wild guess—it's to limit discussion of the crazy things its top prime-time star says and does.
Briefly, let's be fair. Maddow isn't "crazy" in the way Mike Lindell is. She also isn't crazy in the way of Donald J. Trump.
That said, she's plenty nutty—and our tribe, the liberal tribe, is almost completely unable to see this. In this way, our functioning resembles that of the bulk of current Trump voters, who don't seem to know that they're being misled by the people they feel they can trust.
For the record, you can watch a three-minute, 43-second chunk of Maddow's opening nine minutes. You can do so by going to the Maddow site, then clicking on the video segment bearing this title:
"McCarthy facing another possible Republican indictment as Gaetz case develops"
That video segment starts in the middle of the nine-minute opening segment. For that reason, you won't be able to see the extremely strange conceptual framework Maddow built around this (largely pointless) material.
That said, Maddow routinely displays extremely strange judgment; she really shouldn't be on the air. Unfortunately, our liberal tribe is completely unable to discern such facts about her.
It works in much the same way with The Others, millions of whom still believe that Donald J. Trump won the 2020 election.
Maddow shouldn't be on the air. At this point, her network seems to be covering for her as they await her impending departure.
Move with us now to today's New York Times. In print editions, this lengthy, very strange essay sits in the place traditionally occupied by the newspaper's editorials.
As with Maddow, so too here! The Times doesn't provide a record of this essay at its "Today's Paper" site. In print editions, the essay eats a large chunk of space, but its existence isn't acknowledged at that site.
That may be a simple oversight. Why do we mention this essay?
For starters, consider this. Its author is extremely young. He's part of the current class in the New York Times Fellowship program, the successor to the paper's previous intern program.
The author may be very bright, but he's also very young and he's very inexperienced. In somewhat typical fashion, this is the way the New York Times profiles him:
Duy Nguyen
Opinion Graphics
2021-22
Duy Nguyen previously wrote articles and crunched numbers at Saigoneer, Pushkin Industries and CoinDesk. He is passionate about coding, charts and climate change. Duy is expected to graduate from New York University in May with a degree in data science. If you ever catch him in his hometown of Hanoi, Vietnam, chances are he’ll be too busy slurping a $2 bowl of bún chả to chat.
According to the instinctively hapless Times, Duy Nguyen "is expected to graduate from New York University in May"—but they don't say in May of what year! We're guessing they mean May 2022, but we can't say we're totally sure.
Nguyen is very, very young—very young and quite inexperienced. His essay concerns the topic of gerrymandering, and it's stunningly under-informative, possibly even misleading.
At one point, his artfully fuzzy language even reminds us of an old, great Maddow hook.
(According to Nguyen, "wonky boundaries" for congressional districts are sometimes drawn "with an eye toward giving Hispanic communities a chance to find a common electoral voice, as mandated by the Voting Rights Act." That's unassailably accurate. But what the heck does that mean?)
In what universe is this fuzzy essay, by a college student, the best the Times can do? Answer:
In the same world where NBC News still has Maddow on the air!
In that world, we liberals are generally unable to spot the foibles of our most trusted news orgs. Trump's voters can't see through Donald J. Trump, and we can't see through our own favorite stars.
We're trying to make our way to a very depressing topic. Tomorrow, we'll start with this detailed report about what happened on that unfortunate night, "the night Kenosha burned."
Our tribe invented our usual stories about that unfortunate night. We did that as part of our latest attempt to send a demonized Other to jail.
Of course, sending The Others to jail has long been the central part of Maddow's profoundly unhelpful brief. In fairness, she's isn't as crazy as Lindell seems to be on this particular topic—but she's nutty enough.
Long ago and far away, Klemko and Jaffe wrote a lengthy report for the Washington Post about what happened that night. In each of our badly dysfunctional tribes, we disappeared much of their work.
At the very start of their report, they offered a very important bit of framing. We highlight that framing below:
KLEMKO AND JAFFE (10/3/20): Anti-police-brutality demonstrators were converging on Kenosha from all over Wisconsin for a second night of marches. An armed right-wing group had put out a call for “patriots willing to take up arms and defend [our] City tonight from the evil thugs.”
Joseph Rosenbaum—depressed, homeless and alone—didn’t belong to either side. He had spent most of his adult life in prison for sexual conduct with children when he was 18 and struggled with bipolar disorder. That day, Aug. 25, Rosenbaum was discharged from a Milwaukee hospital following his second suicide attempt in as many months and dumped on the streets of Kenosha.
His confrontation hours later with Kyle Rittenhouse, a heavily armed teenager who had answered the call for “patriots,” kicked off a chain of violence—the deadliest of the summer—that left Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, dead. A third victim, Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, lost a chunk of his right biceps but survived.
Within hours, the three men and the teenager who shot them were assigned roles in the country’s churning partisan drama. ...
Had we been editing that report, we would have changed some of the language in those first three paragraphs. But in the sentence we've highlighted, the reporters described the actual way our discourse actually works.
Simply put, we modern humans don't run on information. We don't run on logic and facts.
Our discourse runs on the rocket fuel of fabulized novelization. We run on tribalized "partisan drama(s)"—on the highly selective, childish stories our childish minds, "within hours," create.
Not since E. R. Shipp, in March 2000, have we seen someone state that premise so clearly and so succinctly. Tomorrow, we'll start with Klemko and Jaffe's detailed report—a report filled with the types of nuance and tragedy our childish tribes rush to disappear as we conduct our identity wars.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live?” The late Joan Didion wrote that in The White Album. We don't know what Didion meant, but her bromide fits nicely here.
Maddow was at it again last night; they'll be holding the transcript until next week. Our tribe is almost completely unable to see how nutty this is.
Tomorrow: First Shipp, then Klemko and Jaffe
Person who is in denial about Right-wing fascism proves humans don’t process information.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete"Briefly, let's be fair. Maddow isn't "crazy" in the way Mike Lindell is."
Sure, dear Bob, of course dembot Rachel is a good, decent person. We're well-aware of your 'liberal taxonomy', if we could call it that.
...or, would you prefer 'dear Bob's soft dembottery'?
Digby says:
ReplyDelete"In 2006, 98 of 100 senators voted to renew the Voting Rights Act. There were no votes opposed. Two Republicans were not present.
What changed between then and now? The country in 2008 elected a Black president with record turnout and a surge of voting by young people and non-white voters. “Black turnout exceeded white turnout — 69.1 percent to 65.2 percent — for the first time in history,” the Washington Post reported. “By 2012, when Obama sought reelection, the gap was even larger, even though turnout among both groups decreased slightly.” That’s what."
Kamala Harris says she will not absolve the 50 Republican senators who will not support voting rights for all citizens.
But Somerby wants to make this about Manchin and Sinema, of course. Because that's what Republicans do -- shift the blame.
And today he writes total garbage. He says that Maddow isn't crazy like Trump, but she is plenty nutty. As long as he says she isn't Trump-crazy he apparently doesn't have to explain what, if anything, she has done to deserve being called "nutty."
And today he picks on a college kid for being young and inexperienced, then asks "Is this the best the Times can do?" as if this were the only news in today's paper. Again, without ever saying what Nguyen did wrong.
These days, it is enough for Somerby to accuse and assert, no examples much less proof needed for anything, no argument, just ugly doomsaying, day after day.
Who else says the end is near -- Glenn Beck, who has covid. If this is the best Somerby can do, he needs to see his shrink. If your friend or relative were this gloomy without bothering to fill in the outlines of his dark predictions, you should worry about suicidal thoughts and try to help.
Aside from just phoning it in today, Somerby is becoming darker. Who wouldn't, if he thought 17 year old murderers were justified in shooting mentally ill protesters, but this is getting worse.
Rachel Maddow explained the connection between those fake certificates (forged with state seals) saying that Trump won in 2020 and Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff. Is that why Somerby calls her nutty? Does Somerby have so little to refute Trump's actions that he resorts to just dismissing Maddow as a nut?
And this is the media criticism that Cecelia calls "brilliant"! Somerby cannot refute a media story, so he just dismisses everything as "stories we tell ourselves to live" as if it were all made up, fiction. And no, Joan Didion would not agree with his use of her quote, never intended to serve Somerby's purposes.
It is nutty that Trump would do something like that. But that kind of nuttiness doesn't belong to our tribe, no matter how many times Somerby repeats his empty nonsense.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteKlemko and Jaffe refer to a churning partisan drama. Somerby expands that to make it part of all of our minds, claiming that we all think that way, all the time. That is a huge, unjustified leap.
ReplyDeletePeople with partisan motives use partisan stories to convince others of their cause. That doesn't mean that we are all doing that, all the time, with everything we touch.
But, it is Somerby's motive to convince us that everything we think we know, our sense of reality, depends on such partisan manipulation, our own and in what we read. He wants us to believe that we cannot depend on information from the so-called liberal media, because it is all partisan storyline, even the fact-based reporting of current events. In previous essays, Somerby has told us that we liberals are being lied to, that we can only get facts at Fox News, which by all objective investigative studies is worse than any of the mainstream media at presenting accurate information about current events.
When Somerby offers Fox as a more credible source than CNN or MSNBC or the NY Times, you should take that as evidence that Somerby himself is both partisan and wrong. He does not have your best interests at heart but is working hard for someone, but not to help us. Read Somerby with caution -- he has not told the truth today about Rachel Maddow's show yesterday. And he unkindly slimed a college student writing an opinion piece because he couldn't find a specific criticism of Maddow to support his claims.
Glen Beck is talking about the end of the great experiment, democracy, too:
ReplyDelete"Tucker Carlson ended his wild interview with Glenn Beck on Tuesday night with a mild clarification regarding one of Beck’s more bombastic claims.
Beck, who was on Fox’s top-rated Tucker Carlson Tonight promoting his new book The Great Reset, claimed that an international “reset” is underway that is moving Western civilization toward a fascist dystopia and that there is proof of it in Washington State – upcoming Covid-19 “internment camps.”
“The Great Reset is not a conspiracy theory, it is something that the Davos people have put together along with the World Economic Forum,” claimed Beck, while Carlson listened intensely, “and it is running rampant through every Western capital and every Western country.”
Beck said this on the #1 rated nightly news show, on the #1 news station, Fox News. Somerby has been watching Fox lately and has recommended that we liberals watch it too, since it has better information than the mainstream media (which he refers to as the liberal media).
Note that when Beck refers to fascism, he is referring to LIBERAL fascism, not conservative. It is the old trick of accusing one's political opponents of your own weaknesses.
Beck is crazy in the same way as Trump and Lindell. This excerpt is batshit. But this is what Somerby has been watching, and it is perhaps why his own essays have increasingly been full of "This is the end of our great experiment" lately.
The right gains support by evoking fear in its base. One of the key psychological drivers of conservatism is fear of death. Covid itself and the dysfunctional right-wing response to it have ramped up that fear. The doomsday talk of the end times by Q-Anon and Fundamentalist end-timers is moving into mainstream conservatism -- and now it is infecting Somerby as well.
Somerby is off the deep end. We are not lemmings. We do not have to follow him off that cliff.
"current "sow-walk" procedures"
ReplyDeleteAssume Somerby means slow walk. A sow is a female pig. That could be a Freudian slip, given his feelings about women, especially Maddow.
"Why would this NBC entity delay its transcripts like that? At this point, we'll take a wild guess—it's to limit discussion of the crazy things its top prime-time star says and does."
ReplyDeleteIf this were only occurring on Maddow's show, Somerby might have a point, but because it is more generalized it seems more likely to be related to the cost and staffing required to produce transcripts for a show where it seems unlikely anyone else wants transcripts as badly as Somerby does.
"you won't be able to see the extremely strange conceptual framework Maddow built around this (largely pointless) material."
ReplyDeleteSome of us consider the crimes that Matt Gaetz is accused of committing to be very serious, far from pointless.
Once Gaetz is charged, I fully expect Somerby to be back arguing that the women who are the victims of Gaetz and his buddies are actually to blame for what he did.
"she really shouldn't be on the air."
ReplyDeleteAnd here we see Somerby's endorsement of cancel culture. He disagrees with Maddow's judgment about news, so SHE shouldn't be on the air.
I just read that NYTimes essay by Duy Nguyen. Contra Bob, it's well-written and well thought out. Nguyen makes some excellent points and illustrates those points with excellent pictures. It's also bi-partisan. That's appropriate, because both sides abuse the Gerrymander.
ReplyDeleteThis is false. The article makes it clear gerrymandering is mainly a Republican problem:
Delete"Republicans have been much more aggressive than Democrats in enacting gerrymandered maps over recent years. And calls for redistricting reform have usually come from Democrats."
Nguyen can only point to Maryland as the sole example of Dem gerrymandering, except he admits it is not much of a case:
"Democrats in Maryland enacted new congressional maps in December, and the awkward district shapes are mostly gone. But the party seems poised to maintain its grasp on Maryland’s congressional seats."
What Nguyen fails to mention in his sole example of Dem gerrymandering is that there is only one district in Maryland that had been altered, and that that one district had only elected one Republican since 1971. Not much of a case.
Furthermore the article makes it clear why gerrymandering persists:
"Democrats in the House have proposed mandating independent commissions in their voting rights bill, the For the People Act. But Republicans have blocked the legislation in the Senate."
David, go fuck yourself. Show me one example where Democrats are eliminating polling places in areas of high minority population to make it more difficult to vote. You racist prick.
Delete"As with Maddow, so too here! The Times doesn't provide a record of this essay at its "Today's Paper" site. In print editions, the essay eats a large chunk of space, but its existence isn't acknowledged at that site."
ReplyDeleteWhat? Somerby accuses NBC of deliberately withholding transcripts of Maddow's show. Now he seems to think that if a piece doesn't appear in each of the NY Times formats, then it too is being withheld? Somerby apparently thinks that all of those formats (print, online, newsletter) should contain the same pieces, regardless of space, cost or the interests of the audience. Needless to say, that's pretty unreasonable.
"That's unassailably accurate. But what the heck does that mean?)"
ReplyDeleteOnce again Somerby blames an author for his own failure to understand something that is obvious to others.
A "common electoral voice" means that there are sufficient Hispanics in a district so that they can vote together if they have someone they all want to elect, for example, a candidate who understands and will represent the interests of the Hispanic community in that district (instead of a community being split across two or more districts in order to prevent them from electing such a person).
Somerby most likely knows very well what the statement means but is objecting to the notion that Hispanic people might have interests different from his own that they might want to see represented. For example, people in a Hispanic neighborhood might care about immigration and what happens to Dreamers. They might want to elect someone who will pressure a Trump-like president to release hurricane relief funds to Puerto Rico, where their relatives and friends are still living. They might want someone with Spanish speaking staff who can help them deal with government services if they are having problems.
Somerby is being an asshole when he is deliberately obtuse about the fact that a community of Hispanic US citizens might have interests different than his own or than the mainstream of voters, and might wish to be redistricted so that they can vote together to elect someone familiar with those interests. His obtuseness itself illustrates why such an opportunity is important to those who are not of Irish American heritage.
And here we see another false equivalency:
ReplyDelete"Trump's voters can't see through Donald J. Trump, and we can't see through our own favorite stars."
Trump tells a Big Lie that he won an election that he obviously lost. And that is supposed to be the same as NBC keeping Maddow on the air when she is popular, informative and has told no such whoppers?
Somerby himself appears to be vying with Trump to see who can make the most outrageous statements.
She was/is a prime disseminator of Russiagate disinformation and lies. Which was trying to pass the blame for an election that Democrats obviously lost.
DeleteYes, no one expects right wing trolls like you to agree with Maddow. Fortunately, NBC is not Fox, so watchers of Maddow's show have the chance to hear information that is not right wing propaganda, including the truth about Russian interference and Biden's victory. That is an important service. Why would Somerby, a supposed liberal, claim that she shouldn't be on the air?
DeleteI'm not talking about Russian interference. I'm talking about Trump Russian collusion, coordination and conspiracy. It was lies and misinformation about that which Maddow disseminated for years, trying to pass the blame for an election Democrats obviously lost.
DeleteSorry, I know you like her. But your head may be in the sand a little bit on this one.
https://slate.com/culture/2019/03/rachel-maddow-mueller-report-trump-barr.html
DeleteI don't like her and don't watch her, but I respect what she does, unlike Somerby.
DeleteThere is your belief about Trump & Russia and there is the truth. It doesn't matter what you think, if your claims are untrue. We will find out what really happened eventually. Trump won't be the candidate in 2024 because his other crimes are catching up with him. But you be you...
If you don't watch her how can you comment on what she says and claim it to be an important service?
DeleteI didn't say I've never watched her.
Delete1:02,
DeleteIf it’s what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer.
It could always be worse. Maddow could have confused Right-wing bigotry with economic anxiousness, like the rest of the mainstream, Right-wing, corporate-owned media (AKA the media).
DeleteOk, thanks for explaining your opinions and rationales.
Delete1:06:
DeleteYou post a link to an aricle in Slate concernng The "Barr Memo". Bwahahaha!!!! That's a good one! LOL!
How do con men get away with it? See willing dupes like 1:07. Trump criminally obstructed the Mueller investigation in broad daylight the entire time, then fires the AG just in time to hand the report off to his corrupt handpicked coverup specialist replacement, Bill Barr, to falsify a memo purportedly summarizing the 300+ page report, and jerkoffs like 1:07 parrot the orange abominations screeching, "See, no collusion, no collusion, no collusion...."
DeleteBwahaha!!!
Mueller is a Republican, his investigation was tepid at best. With respect to Russia, his findings boiled down to "gee we see all these connections and communications and suggestions of quid pro quo but we did not investigate it enough to technically call it collusion; looks like collusion but technically we can not call it collusion." With respect to obstruction Mueller was more forthright, basically he said Trump obstructed and here is how you impeach him for it.
DeleteTrump's collusion with Russia was a very high level of corruption. Mueller aside, if you are ok with that kind of corruption you are corrupt yourself.
"Trump's collusion with Russia was a very high level of corruption." There wasn't any collusion though. What collusion are you talking about? Why would Trump collude with Russia? What did they have they he didn't in terms of targeting voters? Don't forget he was speaking to standing room only stadiums in every city he visited. There's no proof of collusion, conspiracy or coordination in the Mueller Report. If you read it, it's obvious there never was any. But you cling to "we will find out what really happened eventually" and call others dupes??? You are the dupe!
DeleteSorry, sweetheart.
You're a good example of Somerby's claim that we can see the shortcomings of others but not in ourselves. You don't see how asinine and illogical it is to be claiming collusion at this late date based on ... "we will find out what really happened eventually".
DeleteGet back to me, sweeheart, when Trump testifies under oath.
DeleteRussia hacked the emails, dumbass.
Sure. Until then there was no collusion, conspiracy or coordination. The burden of proof is on you and thus far, 6 years in, you don't have anything at all. Thanks to Maddow, you're completely misinformed about it and think "we will find out what really happened eventually".
DeleteAnd you call other people dupes. ;)
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If trump shot a witness to his collusion with Russia in broad daylight in the middle of 5th Avenue, you dumbasses would be exclaiming, "See, no witnesses!"
DeleteJerkoff. Get back to me when Trump and his two idiot sons testify under oath about the matter. Throw in his campaign manager who had to quit the campaign because of his embarrassing ties to russia became public. Jerkoff.
3:54 Get back to me when you have any proof of collusion and understand the whole collusion narrative was started by the Clinton campaign before the election including taking stories about collusion they knew to be false to the FBI and media. Russia is, has and always will have been a scapegoat. A scapegoat fed to gullible dupes like yourself to take your attention away from the real reasons for Clinton's loss.
DeleteIe. don't get mad at me because you got played like a two dollar trick. It's not my fault you have been propagandized by Maddow et al.
3:54 There are no witnesses for Trump to shoot because there never was any collusion. There's no proof of it and the story never made any sense. Yet, propagandists like Maddow spent all their time on it. That was by design. It was to take people like yourself for the proverbial ride. And for a ride they did take you!!
DeleteGet back to me when Trump testifies under oath. And explain why the corrupt conman obstructed the investigation from start to finish. Jerkoff thinks cause he was innnocent! Bwahahaha!!
DeleteGet back to me when the stinking traitorous fat lying sack of shit coward testifies under oath, Ivan. LOL
DeleteExamples of collusion:
Delete1. Funneling money to Republicans from Russian oligarchs to candidates with money laundered by the NRA.
2. Contributions to Democratic candidates opposing Hillary (including Bernie & Jill Stein) from Russian oligarchs via small donations. Bernie said "so what?"
Jill Stein was wined and dined in Russia prior to her campaign.
3. Hacking of voter registration computers in several states, with data funneled to Russian entities to use in targeting social media campaigns involving Russian bots, troll farms, and fake accounts to target left wing voters and turn them off Hillary.
6. Hosting Republican candidates on Russian TV in highly favorable ways. Such appearances later used in campaign materials.
7. Collusion with Julian Assange (with Roger Stone as go-between) to hack Podesta's emails and disseminate them via Wikileaks with timing arranged with Trump campaign. Attempted hacking of Hillary's servers but her security was too good, then her campaign, until finally able to get into Podesta's files.
8. The meeting with Trump's people was to arrange that timing, involving people Trump had dined with in Las Vegas who introduced Trump Jr. to Russian agent (lawyer).
9. Placement of Manafort as Trump's campaign manager so that Russia could coordinate directly and rely on an inside man during campaign. Manafort was in debt to an oligarch yet worked for free on Trump's campaign.
10. Documented activities by troll farms to infiltrate social media and engage in coordinated activities to hurt Hillary and turn her voters. Vicious memes created and circulated, lies, fake photos, etc. Way beyond what would have been allowed in official campaign materials.
11. Contributions by foreign entities (oligarchs) to Republican PACs. Illegal but hard to trace.
12. Comey's investigation of computer owned by husband of Hillary's Assistant Huma Abedin with timing to maximally hurt Hillary's campaign via suggestion that there was new undisclosed material (there wasn't any found). Pressure on Comey to disregard FBI policy in making his statement and interfering in election outcome.
13. Unlikely support by Republicans antipathetic to Trump suggesting coercion using Kompromat or threats to family members. Russians are experts at that.
14. Rewards promised to Trump and his main staff in the form of business favors and money funneled through businesses.
15. Efforts to create a direct line of communication between Putin and Trump campaign. Unexplained computer in basement of Trump tower sending unexplained data to a Russian organization. Not tied to Trump but what was it, not explained either? This was what Hillary reported to the FBI, coming from the Steele dossier.
Probably other things I have forgotten -- recalling this off the top of my head.
You think because the corrupt conman obstructed the investigation from start to finish he was guilty? That doesn't make sense. You're not really thinking through what you say. (Which has always been obvious.)
DeleteBut good luck with the whole collusion thing. Let me know when you have any plausible proof of it. Maddow spoke about pretty much nothing else for years and years and nothing at all came of it. The Clinton campaign has been caught going to the FBI and media with information about it that they knew was false. It's clearly something they want you to believe. And here you are believing it after all these years despite no proof and not even any plausible explanation. Here you are saying " "we will find out what really happened eventually". Sure sounds like you've been duped
4:41 - you have a lot of research to do! Too bad there was no one charged with any crimes re all this "collusion" (ie. Maddow propaganda) you've documented!
DeleteManafort's prison bunkie says:
Delete"Manafort did not suffer at MCC. Inmates kissed his ass because he was famous, did not rat out his boss, and could hopefully give them lessons on money laundering.”
I guess it takes one to know one. Why would Manafort know anything about money laundering if there was no collusion?
Too dumb of a question for me. Good luck with the whole collusion thing though. Let me know when there's anything resembling proof.
DeleteThey depend on your gullibility.
Hoffman is one of the guys who forged documents showing an alternative slate of electors in Arizona.
Delete"Video that's gone viral of Hoffman shows him defending signing the forged documents in which he falsely identifies himself as a duly elected elector for Trump.
His defense: "in unprecedented times, unprecedented action does occur." He goes on to claim, "there is no case law, there is no precedent that exists as to whether or not an election that is currently being litigated in the courts has due standing."
He called the forged electoral documents "dueling opinions"...
Hoffman, it turns out, was banned from Twitter after his company, Rally Forge, worked with Charlie Kirk's far right wing political activist group, Turning Point USA during the 2020 election, establishing "a domestic 'troll farm' in Phoenix, Arizona, that employed teenagers to churn out pro-Trump social media posts, some of which cast doubt on the integrity of the US election system or falsely charged Democrats with attempting to steal the election, the Washington Post revealed," according to The Guardian.
The Washington Post also reported that "the posts are the product of a sprawling yet secretive campaign that experts say evades the guardrails put in place by social media companies to limit online disinformation of the sort used by Russia during the 2016 campaign."
Some of those teens, The Post noted, were minors."
5:21 must be a genius graduate of Trump U.
DeleteHe knows all about what happened. He doesn't have to wait to learn anything. Tell us, 5:21, why do you know that the guy who got caught on tape trying to extort the Ukrainian President into helping him smear his apparent opponent didn't collude with the Russian government smearing his political opponent?
Bwahahaha!
Mueller barely lifted a finger, did not bother with intelligence, just interviewed some lying liars, but the Mueller Report had an entire volume that detailed evidence of collusion: back door channels, sharing polling data, a real estate deal, a change in the GOP platform, a Ukraine "peace" plan, dirt on Clinton meeting, revealing Clinton's emails could be hacked, requesting Clinton's emails be hacked, Clinton's emails being hacked, how and when Clinton's emails were released, agreeing to not sanction Russia...
DeleteKeep laughing, you court jester, as we slide away from democracy into fascism and deeper into neo feudalism. You think you are being clever, but you are just being used. Trump's corruption may not bother you, that just implicates your own level of corruption.
Okay. If anybody has any evidence proving collusion, please let me know. Until then we will all remain exactly where we started this conversation. Maddow pushed the collusion narrative every night, she regarded Mueller to be some kind of moral interlocutor into the situation, yet she never had any proof of it and there never has been any proof of it. So, for now, there is no collusion and Maddow is a hack.
DeleteEven barely-alive Mueller had an entire volume of evidence of collusion. Your attempts at an insanity plea notwithstanding, collusion is merely the reality. Denying reality indicates your mental state, and nothing more. Were this to require any effort, I might care when the cows come home, but I don't...
DeleteMueller didn't have an entire volume of evidence of collusion though. What would some of this evidence be?
DeleteCollusion is not at all the reality. Only a dupe would make that claim.
But evidence isn't even the issue - it's proof.
If you ever get around to reading the Mueller report you will be interested to see that he often claims that there is no evidence. Collusion is the "mere reality" only to ignorant dupes who can't read or think for themselves.
DeleteEg. "The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA."
"The Office did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort’s sharing polling data and Russia’s interference in the election."
"the investigation did not identify evidence that any Campaign official or associate knowingly and intentionally participated in the conspiracy to defraud that the Office charged, namely, the active-measures conspiracy described in Volume I, Section II,"
"the investigation did not identify evidence that the President-Elect asked Flynn to make any request to Kislyak."
"The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons
knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation."
(Stone) "the investigation did not identify evidence of a connection between the outreach or the meeting and Russian interference efforts."
"Smith drafted multiple emails stating or intimating that he was in contact with Russian hackers. For example, in one such email, Smith claimed that, in August 2016, KLS Research had organized meetings with parties who had access to the deleted Clinton emails, including parties with “ties and affiliations to Russia.”286 The investigation did not identify evidence that any such meetings occurred."
"the investigation did not identify evidence that Cohen brought Klokov’s initial offer of assistance to the Campaign’s attention or that anyone associated with the Trump Organization or the Campaign dealt with Klokov at a later date."
"The Office did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government."
This sounds like an indictment of the investigation, repeatedly failing to close the loop, not an absence of collusion on Trump's part.
DeleteIt sounds like that to you because you're an ignorant partisan dupe who has not researched it at all and has not even read the report.
DeleteThe people to whom you have turned to for information about this have lied to you. And you're too stupid and or lazy to research it on your own.
DeleteThey depend on your ignorance and blind partisanship.
DeleteDon't you get tired of being proven wrong about this collusion business? Just read the report already!
DeleteAll different people from a variety of converging sources have all lied to me? I don't think so.
DeleteYes, you don't!
DeleteYeah, I read it, dumbass.
DeleteThird, many of the President's acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the obstruction laws. Ifthe likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system's integrity is the same.
Although the series of events we investigated involved discrete acts, the overall pattern of the President's conduct towards the investigations can shed light on the nature ofthe President's acts and the inferences that can be drawn about his intent. In particular, the actions we investigated can be divided into two phases, reflecting a possible shift in the President's motives. The first phase covered the period from the President's first interactions with Corney through the President's firing of Corney. During that time, the President had been repeatedly told he was not personally under investigation. Soon after the firing of Corney and the appointment of the Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was being investigated in an obstruction-of-justice inquiry. At that point, the President engaged in a second phase of conduct, involving public attacks on the inve tigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. Judgments about the nature of the President's motives during each phase would be informed by the totality of the evidence.
In the spirit of bipartisanship, I give you something we can all agree on:
DeleteAnyone who isn't a bigot, or isn't perfectly fine with bigotry, left the Republican Party more than two decades ago.
Good, if you read it then you know there is no proof of collusion, coordination or conspiracy between Trump and Russia and also that in many many cases there's not even any evidence.
DeleteAs Somerby tries to point out, it would be better if Democrats did not make false claims. This is exactly what he is talking about. The false claim that Trump and Russia colluded is a bad idea to spread around. It does much more harm to Democrats than you realize. Mostly because it's a 100%, completely false and when people like yourself torture logic and try to make it seem like it's not false, you look like disingenuous, stupid fools. Exactly why criticism of Maddow is warranted and accurate.
Mostly because it's a 100%, completely false...
DeleteYou have zero credibility to make that statement because the investigation was totally obstructed and therefore corrupted.
Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
but,
A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.
You understand all this, correct?
Yes I understand. The second statement isn't really relevant. I've pointed out many many excerpts from the report that do not make a claim of establishing facts, they explicitly say there is zero evidence. There's 100% absolutely zero proof of collusion. There is often, not even one shred of evidence of it. The whole story is completely implausible if you take the blinders off. It's something that you want to be true. It's something that Maddiw wanted to be true. It's also a story that was falsely promoted by the Clinton campaign. We know now for a fact that they brought information to the FBI and media about "collusion" that they knew was 100% completely false. The whole story itself is a scapegoat as is your stretch that the only reason there is no proof of it is because of obstruction. You people have gone from there is proof of collusion to okay there's no proof of collusion but there's still collusion somewhere that we don't know about because of obstruction or because we will "find out what happened eventually". That tortured logic works for you because you want it to be true due to your partisanship and exposure to Paris and, biased, unethical media sources like Maddow. But, unfortunately for you, it's not true, there's no evidence in many cases, there's no proof of it and I never will be any proof of it because it didn't happen. It's a scapegoat. Sorry.
DeleteIt's not just the 'collusion' bullshit. The only God-and-Savior-Mueller's case brought to court -- against Concord Management and Consulting -- all charges were dismissed. With prejudice. End of story.
DeleteTsk. So much for the PsyOP initiated by Psycho-Witch and her minions.
You are a picture perfect example of what Bob talks about all the time. People on our side of the aisle completely blinded to how we are propagandaized and how we have blinders on and believe false stories.
DeleteNo, I don't believe it is implausible for the same guy who was caught on tape extorting the President of Ukraine to help him smear his apparent political opponent to have worked with the President of Russia to help him smear his political opponent. I don't think that is implausible at all.
DeleteMueller could not claim they had evidence because trump corrupted the investigation and tampered with the witnesses. Don't be an ass.
We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
Yes, they could not "establish" because his fucking campaign manager was promised a pardon as was Roger slimeball Stone. And the fucking traitor coward Trump and his two idiot sons refused to testify under oath. Don't be an ass.
"Had we been editing that report, we would have changed some of the language in those first three paragraphs. "
ReplyDeleteSomerby admits that if he were discussing what happened in Kenosha, he would change the language to reflect his own viewpoints. That may be why he assumes that others are doing the same, including reporters whose job is to be as objective as possible. But not everyone works that way. There are several fields where people work hard to keep their own subjectivity out of their writing: research, reporting, historical writing, social science non-fiction and the sciences. Somerby routinely assumes that if someone's account disagrees with his own, they are at fault, not his own bias. That makes him an unreliable source himself.
Rittenhouse expressed fantasies about shooting people, punched a teen girl, and hangs out with the Proud Boys.
DeleteIn Kenosha, Rittenhouse taunted Rosenbaum, enticed Rosenbaum to chase after him, and then turned around and killed Rosenbaum for no reason.
Rittenhouse is a cold blooded killer, a psychopath.
The Rittenhouse trial was an attempt to decriminalize murder for white people.
Somerby's take on this issue exposes his lack of a moral compass.
If human beings ran on novelized stories instead of information, we wouldn't have survived as a species. The closer someone lives to reality, the more effective they are and the greater their survival chances and their ability to thrive in their environment. That's why Somerby's claims make no sense at all.
ReplyDeleteA prime example of this principle is that the covid deniers and antivaxxers are dying in much greater numbers than the people who are getting vaccinated and adhering to the recommendations of scientists.
Delete"Maddow showed five Electoral College documents side by side on the screen, explaining, “I picked these five states to show you what the real electoral vote ascertainment documents look like. I picked these five because thanks to the watchdog group American Oversight, we now know that in all five of these states, Republicans also prepared forged fake documents that were sent to the government — proclaiming that actually, these other electors were the real electors from these states, and they were casting the states’ Electoral College votes not for Biden, but for Trump.”
ReplyDeleteThe MSNBC host went on to show the authentic Electoral College documents and the Republican “forgeries,” as she described them, side by side — including the ones from Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona, all of which Biden won.
“It wasn’t one state, it wasn’t three states where they did this — it was at least five states where we have now obtained forged documents created by Republicans,” Maddow told viewers. “And it’s not like they, again, created these documents to, like, hold close to their chest and fantasize that this had been the real outcome. It’s not like they created these documents just to keep themselves as a keepsake. They sent them in to the government as if they were real documents.”
This is why Somerby keeps attacking Maddow.
DeleteThe Gaetz affair has been overplayed, or it seems so at this point, by MSNBC in general. It’s fair to speculate this was to engage viewers in hate watching, or what Bob has sometimes called “sexy time fun.”
ReplyDeleteAs to Maddow, we can only observe that if SHE WAS as nuts as Lindell or the last leader of the free world, maybe Bob wouldn’t write about her since he never writes about those toxic fruitcakes.
As to why he finds her so crazy here, we can only guess because he makes no case, he just points and expects us to agree with him. On the very remarkable story Maddow is now running about Republican participation in Trump’s freakish attempt to steal the Election in the heartland, he had nothing to say. Oh those wonderful right wing middle Americans who apparently were willing to go to great lengths to defraud the Election. How dare we not think they are great folks!
Various news sources are saying that it is likely that Matt Gaetz will be indicted on three charges, not all related to sex trafficking or underage sex or the Mann Act. He may also be charged with obstruction of justice and campaign financing violations.
DeleteThat would make me not unhappy at all. But til it happens it’s not really news. And if nothing happens Gaetz has a right to cry foul. True for a generation of false charges against the Clintons, true for the nitwit Gaetz.
DeleteWhat actually happened today is that Matt Gaetz's ex-girlfriend testified to the grand jury. There was no reason to call her if they weren't planning to indict Gaetz. So this isn't just idle speculation.
Delete"The American experiment—broadly speaking, a "democratic" experiment—has been based, broadly speaking, on the belief that we humans could run our world on the basis of something resembling rationality, and also on an adherence to so-called Enlightenment values."
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, dear Bob, the plutocratic system will survive.
It'll make necessary adjustments required by the emergence of new ways of mass-communication, by the establishment losing its grip on the propaganda channels; but it'll survive.
"Our discourse runs on the rocket fuel of fabulized novelization."
ReplyDeleteYour liberal-hitlerian so-called "discourse", dear Bob, is nothing but hate-mongering. Race-bating. Inciting hatred among ever growing number of bullshit liberal 'identities'.
See Matt Taibi today: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/vaccine-aristocrats-strike-again
The purpose of your hitlerian "discourse" is to make segments of the working class hate and fight each-other, so that the sponsors of your cult -- currency-speculators, global financiers, and such -- could continue looting the world without any worries.
And that's all there is to it, dear Bob.
And then Mao and the Right, who are economically anxious (and not at all just bigots don't you know) supported Trump's HUGE tax break for those same currency-speculators, global financiers, and such.
DeleteRace-baiting only works in the United States because one of our two political parties (the Republican Party) is full of fascists.
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ReplyDelete