The dog which keeps refusing to bark!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2022

Also, Harvard professors and Woodruff: A truly remarkable "news report" appears in today's New York Times.

We're sorry to be the ones raising this topic. But this highly peculiar news report involves the death of Bob Saget. 

We cite the news report because it displays the peculiar behavior of our upper-end "press corps."  The news report, by Benjamin Mueller, begins as shown below, headline included:

MUELLER (2/12/22): Bob Saget’s Autopsy Report Describes Severe Skull Fractures

Bob Saget, the comedian and actor, died after what appeared to be a significant blow to the head, one that fractured his skull in several places and caused bleeding across both sides of his brain, according to an autopsy report released on Friday.

The findings complicated the picture of Mr. Saget’s death that has emerged in recent days: Far from a head bump that might have been shrugged off, the autopsy described an unmistakably serious set of injuries that would at the very least have probably left someone confused, brain experts said.

The report, prepared by Dr. Joshua Stephany, the chief medical examiner of Orange and Osceola counties in Florida, ascribed Mr. Saget’s injuries to a fall.

“It is most probable that the decedent suffered an unwitnessed fall backwards and struck the posterior aspect of his head,” Dr. Stephany wrote, referring to the back of the skull. 

The headline says that Brother Saget suffered "severe" skull fractures (plural). According to Mueller, Saget is now known to have died "after what appeared to be a significant blow to the head, one that fractured his skull in several places."

(Mueller never explains why he's still prepared to assume that there was only one blow to the head, given the extent of the injuries.)

According to Mueller, the findings in the autopsy report have "complicated the picture of Mr. Saget's death." The findings suggest that Saget didn't die from a mere "head bump that might have been shrugged off," as earlier reports had suggested. 

According to Mueller, the autopsy report "described an unmistakably serious set of injuries." Later, Mueller reports what he has been told by at least some of the "brain experts" with whom he has spoken:

MUELLER: Some neurosurgeons said that it would be unusual for a typical fall to cause Mr. Saget’s set of fractures—to the back, the right side and the front of his skull. Those doctors said that the injuries appeared more reminiscent of ones suffered by people who fall from a considerable height or get thrown from their seat in a car crash.

The autopsy, though, found no injuries to other parts of Mr. Saget’s body, as would be expected in a lengthier fall. The medical examiner ruled that the death was accidental. The local sheriff’s office had previously said there were no signs of foul play.

Puzzling! The set of fractures involved in this death appear to be "reminiscent of ones suffered by people who fall from a considerable height or get thrown from their seat in a car crash." That said, the autopsy "found no injuries to other parts of Mr. Saget’s body, as would be expected in a lengthier fall."

At this point, we offer these findings—findings drawn from the world of universal experience and basic common sense:

As a general matter, it's hard to fall from a considerable height when one is in one's hotel room. It's impossible to get thrown from one's seat in a car crash when in such a setting.

By now, anyone with an ounce of sense would perhaps be asking an obvious question. Horrifically, is it possible that Brother Saget was the victim of an assault?

Under the circumstances, it's the world's most obvious question. But Mueller shows no sign that he ever posed that question to the brain experts with whom he consulted.

Meanwhile, who knows? Perhaps if he had asked that question, Mueller would have been told that Saget's injuries do not suggest some such event.

But alas! Like the dog which refused to bark, Mueller refused to address that obvious question in his news report. Times readers are restricted to the one suggestion found in this paragraph:

MUELLER (continuing directly): “This is significant trauma,” said Dr. Gavin Britz, the chair in neurosurgery at Houston Methodist. “This is something I find with someone with a baseball bat to the head, or who has fallen from 20 or 30 feet.”

At last, a baseball bat is mentioned! That one tiny hint is allowed!

Stating the obvious, we don't know what caused Saget's death. Nor do we know why a major newspaper would publish such a strange news report.

On the other hand, we've been puzzled since Thursday night by mainstream journalists' refusal to ask the world's most obvious question about these autopsy findings. Once again, that obvious question would go like this:

Is it possible that Brother Saget was the victim of an assault?

On Thursday night, we marveled at the strange "discussion" of this topic involving Don Lemon and Sanjay Gupta. Absurd discussions involving Lemon are nothing new to cable news viewers, but Gupta has always struck as highly competent—and their discussion was notable for The Obvious Question Which Didn't Get Asked.

As of Thursday night, how serious did Saget's injuries now seem to be? At the start of the "discussion," Gupta offered this:

LEMON (2/10/22): Let's get some insight on this new information from CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Dr. Gupta, thank you so much for joining us. What more have we learned from the autopsy documents?

GUPTA: Well, I think, you know, compared to last night, we are getting more information about just how significant these injuries were. I mean, this was not sort of a simple bump on the head. 

You know, there was a concern last night that maybe he hit his head, sort of on the headboard of the bed, or something like that. He didn't recognize the severity of it and went to sleep and had this bleeding in his brain.

That sequence of events still seems to be plausible. But just the extent of injuries, Don, I think is far more than certainly was originally conveyed. 

Let me show you here. We put this together, Don, to give you an idea of just how many fractures we're talking about.

Using a picture of the brain, and then a model of the human skull, Gupta proceeded to describe the large number of fractures Saget suffered in various parts of his brain. After that complex demonstration, Gupta offered this:

GUPTA: If I didn't know anything else about this, I would say is this someone who was unrestrained in a car accident. Is this someone who fell down a flight of stairs, for example, or something like that?

When we look at this from a, from a neurosurgical perspective, there's a few different things that we're trying to figure out. What was the mechanism in injury? Again, fall? Car accident? What was it? 

But also, the energy of the injury, how much energy was actually put on the skull and the brain. And what we can say from that pattern of injuries, as outlined in the autopsy report, it was a significant, significant blow to the head.

We don't know, again, exactly what caused that. It also does not appear he was on blood thinners, Don, something we talked about last night, which could make, you know, the bleeding worse. 

But from that force alone, there was enough to cause fractures in the skull, and bleeding on top of the brain.

Based on Saget's multiple fractures, Gupta would have thought that he had been in a car accident, without his seat belt on. He said that Saget had received "a significant, significant blow to the head"—and that word was repeated for emphasis.

In his usual fashion, Lemon stammered out a generally pointless non-question question. In response, Gupta continued to describe the severity of Saget's injuries, perhaps attempting to offer some hints: 

GUPTA: This idea that someone was, you know, in a hotel room and sort of slipped and fell or hit their head on something—you know, a cabinet or the headboard or something causing this degree of injury—I think would be very unusual.

Again, if there is something else, where, you know, he fell flat on his back and on the side, also on the side of his head and that caused this pattern of injuries, perhaps. But it also seems like he was at least lucid enough maybe to even have a conversation and get into bed after that. So it's kind of, it's a little bit hard to piece together. 

This is certainly someone, if he had come into the hospital, to the emergency room, would have, you know, gotten a CAT scan, and most likely an operation to try and take that pressure off of this.

If you look at, you know, these types of head injuries across the board, people who have significant head injuries who then develop some amount of bleeding on top of the brain or within the brain, it happens in about a quarter of the time.

But again, this was not just a simple blow to the head. I think that that's what we can say. It was significant, you know, it really was an unprotected, it seems, you know, blow to the head. Maybe falling straight on his back. But still, how does one get fractures above the orbits over here at the same time? Was there some back and forth to the head at that time?

It's tough to talk about. It's so sad, Don, just the overall, you know, whatever happened here. Now, we may never know for certain what happened. But this would not be something that you would expect just from, again, a simple blow to the head. Something much more significant happened here.

Was Gupta dropping hints, perhaps in the face of CNN policy? "This would not be something that you would expect just from a simple blow to the head," he now told Lemon. "Something much more significant happened here."

Gupta had stressed, again and again, the severity of Saget's multiple injuries. But along the way, an obvious question had gone unasked:  "Is it possible that Saget was the victim of an assault?" 

That question went unasked. Instead, in standard "cable news" fashion, Lemon responded with this:

LEMON (continuing directly): Boy, boy. Dr. Gupta, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

With that, the "discussion" ended.

We watched that five-minute "discussion" in real time Thursday night. We wondered if anyone watching the segment had failed to wonder whether Saget had perhaps been the victim of a violent assault.

We felt fairly sure that no one could have failed to wonder about that possibility. That said, Lemon didn't ask this obvious question, and Gupta didn't speak to the possibility in an explicit way.

Is it possible that Saget was the victim of an assault? We have no way of knowing—but even today, 36 hours later, the New York Times still isn't willing to ask.

Instead, the Times doles out one tiny hint. “This is something I find with someone with a baseball bat to the head," one brain expert is quoted saying. There is no attempt to examine that suggestion.

Why does your "press corps" behave this way? We can't answer your question. 

In this deeply unfortunate instance, we're reminded of the press corps' refusal to consider the possibility that Donald J. Trump is, and has been, mentally ill. There are certain topics they just won't discuss. Instead, they keep feeding us product.

We were amazed by the dog which didn't bark as we watched Thursday night's segment. Thirty-six hours later, we see the lordly New York Times playing the same reindeer game.

We're going to stop right here today, but we'll point in two other directions. We'll point to the clueless behavior of three dozen Harvard professors within the course of the past week. We'll also point to Judy Woodruff''s behavior on The PBS NewsHour last night.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but our top journalists and our top professors are often strangely inept. They agree to say things which are hard to defend. They agree to suppress the world's most obvious questions.

Do we live insider The Matrix? We don't know, but we do know this—we live inside the novelizations which come to us from these frequently incompetent upper-end sources. 

This situation dates back decades. It involves the Standard Group Statements they agree to make, and the topics they're too clueless to notice, or simply refuse to discuss

Brother Saget took a terrible blow (or blows) to the head. In the hands of these consummate fops, no further questions have been asked.

At some point, someone is going to address the question we have raised today. Larger parts of our failing society's warring novelizations will never be discussed.

Dearest darlings, use your heads; it simply isn't done! Each tribe has its favored claims. Within the tents of these warring tribes, few voices ever dissent.

Also this: Gupta spoke with Lemon in Thursday's 10 P.M. hour.

In the 8 P.M. hour, he spoke with John Berman. For that transcript, click here.

89 comments:


  1. "At some point, someone is going to address the question we have raised today."

    Oh dear.

    Surely, dear Bob, it's only a matter of time until the faithful are informed that the Russians have done it.

    Mark our words, dear.

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  2. From the CNN transcript:

    “BERMAN: All right, authorities had previously said there are no drugs or foul play any update on that report.

    KAYE: John, to be clear, I want to make this very clear. There was no indication in this autopsy at all or any suggestion of foul play whatsoever,…”

    And this from another news report:
    “A report from the Orange County Medical Examiner stated that Saget had likely fallen backward and hit the back of his head….”

    And this from Saget’s family:

    "The authorities have determined that Bob passed from head trauma," the Saget family said on Wednesday. "They have concluded that he accidentally hit the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it and went to sleep. No drugs or alcohol were involved.

    Now that we have the final conclusions from the authorities' investigation, we felt it only proper that the fans hear those conclusions directly from us," they continued.”

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  3. We live in 'The Spectacle', where subjective representations of truth and belief are manufactured by third parties to look like objective truths and are then distributed and consumed by populants who have stopped or never knew how to find objective truths or belief structures by themselves. Like programmed robots, we pretend we believe in things. We bend subjective observations into what has the appearance of objective truths in order to follow the dictated belief structures of The Spectacle. The Spectacle lives and thinks for us. Every day we surrender our minds and independence to it. It has become an addiction by this point. Life in The Spectacle is more safe and comfortable because there, beliefs are never challenged. And subjective representations of truth and belief that look and feel like objective truths but are really not are confirmed and reinforced as truth - every day, at any hour, provided one has an internet connection. This addiction is too strong to ever end. We are addicted to living a life where we don't have to think critically and what we do think can be instantly reinforced as true not matter how false. We got Skinner-boxed.

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    1. Meh. No need to overdramatize, dear Anon.

      Just like in Orwell's 1984, only the 'educated' (thoroughly brainwashed) classes suffer from delusions.

      The proles are immune to it; they have their common sense and their folk wisdom. And thank God for that.

      Long live Canuck truckers!

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    2. This conflict needs to be mediated. You’d think the media would call for that.

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    3. This strongly suggests you read some reactionary nitwits account of 1984 and have never gone near the book itself.

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    4. A right wing news outlet sued Rachel Maddow for baselessly calling them "literally paid Russian propaganda". The judge ruled that Maddow and her audience live in a dream world where there is no objectivity. According to the judge, Maddow and her viewers have replaced objectivity with a subjective representation of objectivity. The judge ruled that although what Maddow said was objectively false, her viewers expect her to exaggerate and state opinions as if they are objective facts. Her viewers expect to have subjective opinions delivered in the language of objectivity. The judge made very clear when you tune into her show, lies are facts.

      She's just following through and a huge part of the spectacle of alternative reality that has replaced independent thinking. The virtual world where anything you believe can be true and nothing you believe can be challenged. Where you can choose from a set of predetermined belief systems that appear to be based on objective reality but are really a representations of one. When one enters that world, one need never leave because they will always have demons like Maddow there to confirm that the lies they believe are facts.

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    5. There isn't a sufficiently objective definition of what constitutes Russian propaganda. For example, is Tucker Carlson paid propaganda? He is a propagandist, no doubt. He supports Russia. He is paid. But it would be a nitpick to assert that he must be paid by Russia directly in order to be literally a paid Russian propagandist. For Maddow's purposes, the audience isn't going to think that she really means he works for Russia, instead of being a propagandist supporting Russia and getting paid for doing it.

      I've been noticing that conservatives love to play an excessively literal nit-picking game of gotcha. The judge just said that conservatives cannot play gotcha with Maddow's show content because no reasonable viewer parses her information that narrowly.

      And no, this isn't about subjectivity or objectivity. It is about how people think when viewing her show, what the expectations and understandings of the audience are. And the judge did not say anywhere in the judgment that lies are facts, on her show or anywhere else.

      The second paragraph is your opinion @4:12. It turns meaningful words into gobbledy gook. For example, when Maddow describes the situation with the water supply in Flint MI, viewers don't have preconceived ideas that they are seeking to confirm. They mostly don't know what happened there and are being informed. I think it is you conservatives who have such ideas and dislike it when she disconfirms them.

      The rest of us understand that Tucker Carlson has been carrying water for Trump, who is in Putin's pocket. When Tucker tells conservatives how to think about what is happening the Ukraine, it is Putin's preferred message. And I myself believe that Tucker is being paid by Russian oligarchs (if through cutouts), just as Trump and numerous other Republicans have been. We weren't born yesterday.

      By suing Maddow, conservatives how to throw doubt on what she reports. But you guys lost that suit on its merits (not because some judge redefined objective reality). You don't get to continue to claim libel after losing a libel suit.

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    6. It most certainly is about subjectivity and objectivity. The judge ruled viewers who heard the claim, which was stated as an objective fact even to the point it was lathered up with the word 'literally', "would not conclude that the contested statement implies an assertion of objective fact.” The viewers understood that her lie is presented as a fact. The viewers actually want and desire it and come to her for this. Would you like me to tone it down for you and make you feel a little better? Okay. Exaggerations are facts. You live in a world where subjective exaggerations are presented as objective facts.

      Carlson was sued in a similar way and used the exact same defense about a year after Maddow used it. The spectacle knows no political ideologies. It is for anyone who wants to surrender their ability to reason independently and trade it in for a subjective representation of objective reality.

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    7. "A right wing news outlet sued Rachel Maddow for baselessly calling them "literally paid Russian propaganda"."

      Right-wing outlet? Meh. Don't be a fool, dear Anon.

      Who could possibly be further right than liberal Nazis raving about "Russian propaganda"?

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    8. 1:12: not sure what your comment has to do with the post about Saget’s death? What I know is that Somerby chastises the media for not speculating about something when the coroner has made his ruling and Saget’s family has accepted the findings.

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    9. mh, that might be because Somerby feels free to ask relevant questions because he has no onus toward himself as you have onus toward him.

      Therefore, he is not impeded from wondering aloud as to how a guy in a hotel room can have a head injury commiserate with being dropped 20 to 30 feet or flung from a moving vehicle.

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    10. Onus? Self-onus?

      Commiserate = comensurate

      Commenting drunk again, or just trying to sound more literate than you are?

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    11. It seems likely they found something present at the scene that would account for an accidental injury. Perhaps a railing with a big dent in it or blood on the shower door. They don't have to put all the details in public documents. If there were a big mystery, as Somerby hints, the cops would be investigating further.

      TV actor Bob Crane died under unexplained circumstances over 40 years ago, then they finally caught the person who killed him. It cast a negative light on his lifestyle when they did. If Somerby cares so much about Saget, perhaps he should let things be.

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    12. Similarly, director and producer Barry Crane was killed in 1985 and found bludgeoned to death and wrapped in a sheet. They caught his killer in 2018. Again, the circumstances of that killing did nothing to enhance Crane's reputation. In addition to being a top Hollywood producer, he won more bridge titles and collected more masterpoints than any other player, by a wide margin, and is the top matchpoint player of all time, inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 1995. Does it help anything to have discovered who killed him? I don't think so.

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    13. Anonymouse 10:31, my spelling sucks.

      Anonymouse10:45am reasoning sucks.

      I can always download a grammar/spell app

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    14. Please do so. It is disrespectful of others to write gibberish.

      There is no reasoning involved in a celebrity death that is only solved 40 years later. Somerby wants to create some mystery where the normal processes that operate in the case of unattended deaths say there was an accident. I am asking what end is served when a death is declared an unsolved cold case for decades after which some miscreant is arrested who makes the victim seem like a total sleaze.

      I already think Saget was a sleaze for joking about rape and incest, but Somerby seems to have some regard for Saget. Will he be happy if information comes forward showing him to be scummier than expected? Why?

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    15. Right, Anonymouse 3:52pm, because no one should ask questions as to how it was that the early report was that Saget received a bump on the head and then then went to bed, when his injuries were far and away more substantial than suggested.

      We’re not to be alarmed that something sinister happened to the man at the Ritz Carlton. We’re supposed to be concerned about Saget’s professional image upon the assumption that since he was a celebrity, he was likely to have been hanging upside down from the ceiling while being tickled by the Elephant Man.

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  4. On the quite relevant story of Trump destroying documents, the MSNBC gang has been hitting hard on Trump’s (highly dubious) bird dogging of the Hilary emails story. But how, it might be asked, did THEY do on said “story?” Was it not something dreamed up by the Times and Post in the first place?
    Good questions, and no doubt Bob noticed. I’m afraid, however, that would mean noticing more sick and outrageous behavior by President Trump, and Bob will write about seemingly anything else.

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    1. Another nitwit owned by Trump.

      Whatever the story, he must drag his Trump obsession into it.

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    2. Yes, just an attempt to overturn an election ( by the fruitcake you obviously voted for) for the most important office in the Free world. FDR, you are very stupid person and should not be let out of the house for the safety of others.

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    3. Somerby is waiting for Fox News to coalesce around a talking point before he tackled the stolen document story.

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    4. It is an important story in the sense that it was the “email” that was flogged by mainstream media, Fox News, and Trump, that greatly contributed to Hillary’s loss, and here we have Trump actually stealing and destroying documents, and the msm is going “meh”. Will there be front page coverage in the NYT during the duration of Trump’s campaign?

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    5. No one cares about email protocols, private servers, or communications made over non-encrypted, secured phones.
      Least of all Republicans and their corporate-owned media.

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  5. It's true they didn't want to speculate about a possible assault.
    So what?

    Others certainly will.

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    1. Possible assault? You mean on the Constitution?

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  6. New unredacted Mueller Report was released - "Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks’s releases of hacked materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. Further, the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election."

    It goes on and on and on confirming there was no coordination, collusion or conspiracy between Trump and Russia. ((Which is obvious to anyone who can read and reason at a 8th grade level and is not given themselves over to Democratic propaganda.))

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    1. You idiots should read it. There's a first time for everything.

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    2. There's a reason why obstruction of justice is a serious crime. Since you are obviously an 8th grade graduate, maybe you can tell us why.

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    3. If it’s what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer.

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    4. Trump's collusion with Russia is high order corruption, you can hang your hat on the dubious reasons why Mueller did not want prosecute, but it just exposes you lack of a moral compass.

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  7. Get back to me when Donald J. Chickenshit testifies under oath like he repeatedly promised at the same time he was criminally obstructing and witness tampering.

    The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.

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    1. What modern political campaign didn't have numerous links between the Russian government and their campaign? That's one of the canards they use to fool you. Why don't you get back to me when you start to read and reason about this issue at an 8th grade level and stop giving yourself over to Democratic propaganda.

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    2. Btw this is what the report actually said before you lied about it and changed it with your post here "while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges."

      You're a liar and a dupe.

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    3. 8:10:
      And I bet you just happened to have voted for Biden and Hillary.

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    4. I did. Yes. And Obama before that. I gave him a lot of money. I would vote for any of them again. I do no like Donald Trump.

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    5. INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME 1

      PAGE 1, PARAGRAPH 6, 4TH SENTENCE
      The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.

      I have no reason to lie, jackass.

      Finally, although the evidence of contacts between Campaign officials and Russia­ affiliated individuals may not have been sufficient to establish or sustain criminal charges, several U.S. persons connected to the Campaign made fa lse statements about those contacts and took other steps to obstruct the Office's investigation and those of Congress. This Office has therefore charged some of those individuals with making false statements and obstructing justice.

      A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts...

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    6. Yes, you're right. I was wrong. It does say what you originally quoted once in the report. "The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign." Subsequently it qualifies it as people associated with the Russian government and the Trump campaign.

      "while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges"

      Yes, there was evidence. It was not sufficient to charge though. Do you really, at this point, this Trump and Russia colluded? That is so colossally stupid and naive!

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    7. Now that the unredacted Mueller Report explicitly says there was not sufficient evidence to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation, are you idiots going to officially retire using the trite and stupid "If it’s what you say, I love it, especially later in the summer" as a pathetic riposte, as if that is some sort of meaningful response indicating collusion? If you idiots had ever read the report in the first place you would know the whole episode was a clown show and any thoughts of collusion stemming from it are totally insane. But you never read it. Being the idiots that you are.

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    8. I happen to think this is important and relevant.

      Taking into account that information and our analysis of applicable statutory and constitutional principles (discussed below in Volume IT, Section III, iifra), we determined that there was a sufficient factual and legal basis to further investigate potential obstruction-of-justice issues involving the President.

      You apparently think it is perfectly fine to obstruct the investigation, bribe witnesses, abuse the power of the office of the Presidency, suborn perjury etc etc etc. I don't. And it is impossible to assert with any certainty what you keep asserting. And this is why you keep ignoring the evidence of obstruction of the investigation.

      Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a "backdoor" way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would. require candidate Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They al so discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting.

      Of course, we know how Manafort, Trump's fucking campaign manager, ultimately was found to have violated the (cooperation) agreement by lying to investigators. and ended up receiving a full pardon from Donald J Chickenshit.

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    9. I don't mean to ignore the obstruction part. There's a case for some obstruction perhaps. But collusion coordination and conspiracy is pretty much an impossibility if you read the report, which you have not and if you look at the evidence with the reasoning of 12-year-old or 13-year-old. Obstruction, yes maybe. But if you honestly think that there was coordination, conspiracy or collusion, partly, I guess you are saying because there was obstruction, that is your right. I'll try not to judge you and your ability to reason based on it. It's such an interesting phenomenon having this enormous group of people scapegoat their election loss and flail about looking everywhere and blaming everyone and everything for it except themselves. It's just a really interesting phenomenon to have this enormous group completely, totally, 100% not look at their own shortcomings, not look for the objective truth of their loss but to quixotically flail about and cast blame and almost anything onto which they can grasp. It's very very interesting. And it's very unhealthy. It couldn't be more unhealthy. And you will see the effects of it moving on. Trump for example would have won in a landslide had it not been for the pandemic and a lot of that is due to the fact that not regroup and be honest with themselves about why they lost and instead pursued completely ridiculous, spy fantasy thriller scapegoats like Trump Russia collusion.

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    10. What is the basis for the brive witnesses claim? I have to look that out. You can just pull that out of your ass did you?

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    11. Very scary about that secret polling data isn't it? The secret data that was given to Russia that they used to target swing states with a $50,000 Facebook campaign, all thanks to the special, secret polling data which contained the magical information that allowed them to throw the election with $50,000.

      Can you see how that makes absolutely zero sense at all? Trump was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Facebook campaigns.

      Never mind, it was Russia and racism. ;)

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    12. All they had to do was convince black and Bernie voters to stay home in WI. They did that be spreading specially targeted anti-Hillary memes aimed at Democratic voters. They only need 8000 votes in WI.

      Don't scoff. Corporations sell millions of dollars in merchandise the same way, for the same rates.

      Not sure where you got that $50k figure.

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    13. https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-ad-spend/

      They purchased $100,000 total but ran $50, 000 of it after the election. As you can see tens of millions of dollars was spent by Trump and he had the aid of Facebook themselves who gave them their top experts on how to Target voters not to mention data from Cambridge analytica. Also not to mention the billion dollars in free publicity Trump received from the mainstream media. Also not to mention the ecosystem of right-wing websites like Breitbart that were enormously funded by powerful right-wing interests all trying to swing the votes for trump.

      The idea that Russia would step into that with some magical secret polling data and 50K running ridiculous Facebook posts many that had nothing to do with the election itself and make any difference whatsoever in the outcome of the election is completely insane.

      You have seen the Russian ads in question have you not?

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    14. Think about it another way. Trump had a billion dollars in his campaign. He was already spending tens of millions of dollars with Facebook and he already had the polling data. Why on Earth would he turn to Russia then? It makes absolutely zero sense. What makes sense is that Russia is being used by democrats as a scapegoat for an embarrassing loss. That makes hundreds of thousands of times more sense than the idiotic Russia hype dream conspiracy scapegoat.

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    15. https://money.cnn.com/2016/03/15/media/trump-free-media-coverage/

      Delete
    16. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election

      Delete
    17. Some of the polling data was used to help downticket Republican candidates get elected.

      We know that Russia hacked computers containing voter registration information in WI. That data could be used to identify which voters to specifically target with anti-Hillary memes in order to swing their crucial votes and give WI to Trump. Rinse and repeat in MI and PA. Analyses show that the reason Hillary lost in those states was (1) Comey, (2) missing votes from black and Bernie voters, (3) Democrats who voted for Jill Stein. Targeting vulnerable Democratic voters with propaganda at the last minute worked to swing the state to Trump.

      It is ridiculous to argue that such a tactic doesn't make sense when it is what happened.

      Delete
    18. What is wrong with you?

      The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials-hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government-began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November. INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME I

      That shit, slowly dripped to the only too willing idiot media, was worth billions to the orange abomination.

      Delete
    19. 11:01 - that is baseless speculation. There's no credible source for the "polling data was used to help down ticket Republican candidates", there's no credible evidence that Russia even targeted those states. The Wisconsin hacking story was debunked 5 years ago!!!

      https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2017/09/26/wisconsin-elections-commission-offers-apology-raises-questions-hacking-attempt/703660001/

      11:04 - that does not mention and coordination or collusion with Trump nor does it make any claims about the interference's effect on the outcome of the election. (Clearly there was none when you look at it objectively.)

      So interesting that you idiots still cling to this obviously false scapegoat. Repeating BS propaganda that was debunked half a decade ago. So crazy!

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    20. It just shows you the effectiveness of Democratic propaganda as delivered by the likes of Rachel Maddow. And of course there's a huge psychological aspect to it. Not wanting to come to terms with the fact our democracy is coming apart at the seams. Looking instead for some fantasy scapegoat instead of facing that issue directly.

      Delete
    21. That is a really good example. Maddow will breathlessly report that Wisconsin was hacked by Russians, but when it is debunked, crickets. That is true so many stories she reported. That Trump Tower was connected to a Russian bank, that Russia was giving bounties in Afghanistan. She reports it based on "sources", but when it is proven false, she doesn't say a thing. That's why Somerby is completely accurate and correct to criticize Maddow. She does you and your party and the country a huge disservice by being one of the world's biggest, most successful, propagandists.

      Delete
    22. 11:41 you are the only one bringing up Maddow here, if you notice. Nobody here is a viewer. She probably is flattered by the attention you and Somerby pay to her, but she has nowhere near the power and influence you seem to ascribe to her. Get a grip.

      Delete
    23. Russia, if you're listening, tell Republicans to stop suppressing the votes of black people.

      Delete
    24. I voted for Clinton, despite the explosive controversy about Poderholtz's potato salad recipe.
      Support Big Farmer.

      Delete
    25. There is nothing in the Mueller Report about a non-bigoted Republican voter.

      Delete
    26. Maddow or whatever propagandist down the food chain that led 11:01 to stupidly claim Russia hacked WI voter data. They are all complicit in the same was as Maddow.

      As they are complicit at this point, continuing to spread obvious propaganda against all reason and evidence. No one is that dumb.

      Delete
    27. Look at all the idiot non responses that avoid the main issue.

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    28. 12:23,
      The Russia lie lasted longer than the one about "economic anxiousness", only because it's more plausible.

      Delete
    29. A story about how the Easter Bunny changed all of Clinton's votes to Trump, after curing cancer, is more plausible than the one about economic anxiousness.

      Delete
    30. Why is that 12:29?

      Delete
    31. “We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term,” Mueller added. “Rather, we focused on whether the evidence was sufficient to charge any member of the campaign with taking part in a criminal conspiracy. It was not.” Trump
      solicited,politically weaponized and strategically employed the illegal fruits of Russian interference in a US election. Many times.

      Delete
    32. Booky - he solicited Russia by asking them on public TV to hack Hillary? Russia was sitting around waiting for him to give a public speech to get permission to hack her?

      This is a story that you want to be true so much to the point where you abandon reason and rationality. And you've been a victim of propaganda too. "Trump politically weaponized the illegal fruits of Russian interference in a US election" IDIOTIC!!!

      Delete
    33. Btw, Trump who has found time to comment about Joe Rogan, tweets,Jan 6. terrorists etc. has not had a word to say about the biggest story of the last weeks: Putin and Ukraine. Its not criminal conspiracy either but Does anyone doubt why?

      Delete
    34. 9:09 says, I don't mean to ignore the obstruction part.

      And then proceeds to continue to ignore it.

      Trump for example would have won in a landslide had it not been for the pandemic...

      See how stupid you are, 9:09.
      The orange abomination was handed the election on a silver platter with the pandemic. Only trouble is he fucked it up nine ways from Sunday.

      Delete
    35. Great. You've chosen different scapegoats from the list of alternatives provided by the propagandists to whom you turn to for information. It's everyone's fault but the Democrats themselves. Have fun playing the blame game and not facing the heart of the issue directly which is Trump won because huge swaths of the population can't stomach voting for either party both of whom only pretend to have their interests at heart while actually catering to their zillionaire donors.

      Delete
    36. Oh - ok, thanks for letting me know. But ... how did Hillary have 1.4 billion dollars in her campaign? Where did that money come from? You and me? What you've written here is another scapegoat for which you have no basis. Sorry.

      Delete
    37. Unlike Clinton, Trump actually had a sizable amount of individual donations. Not near enough to win an election. Most of his money, especially towards the end, came in the form of dark money corporate donations, the same scumfuck big boys who were funding and counting on Clinton. Sanders on the other hand apparently did something never seen in modern politics which was have a moderately successful campaign with mostly individual donations and no corporate money. Obama did very well on that as well in 08/12 but not as well as Sanders did in 2016 - according the political scientists who study these things.

      Delete
    38. Sanders received Russian money via both the NRA and individual donors. When asked about that he said "so what?"

      Delete
    39. Hahaha. Funny. You should research that claim further. Have a good Super Sunday!

      Delete
    40. How did Hillary have 1.4 billion dollars in her campaign? Where did that money come from?

      Delete
    41. Let's aggregate all the lies and misinformation you idiotic moron tried to spread here.

      Numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign do not add up to collision.

      The internal polling data shared by Manafort was never proven to have been given to anyone. Treasury department made that claim and when asked for the proof, did not respond.

      Trump has never been accused of or been shown to have bribed witnesses.

      Russia did not hack anything in Wisconsin in 2016

      There's no evidence at all that the Russian interference campaign was aimed specifically at swing states. That is another lie that is just completely made up.

      There's no evidence or proof whatsoever that the polling data was used to help downticket Republican candidates.

      There's no evidence or proof the Russian interference campaign was employed at the last minute to swing swing States to Trump.

      There's no proof the Russian interference campaign had any effect whatsoever on the outcome of the election.

      There's no proof whatsoever that the Russian interference campaign was in coordination or conspiracy with the Trump campaign.

      There is proof that Rachel Maddow does have enormous amount of power. She gets paid over 15 million dollars a year. Duh, moron.

      Trump has commented on events going on between Putin and Ukraine.

      Hillary Clinton's campaign was financed almost in total by the largest most powerful corporations in the world. She had nowhere near the amount of individual campaign or event attendance that Trump had.

      Bernie Sanders did not receive money from Russia or the NRA when he ran for president in 2016.

      YOU'RE AN IDIOT!!!

      Delete
    42. 9:52
      And how much do the Fox News hosts get paid to attack Rachel’s Russia narrative, I mean, if we’re talking about high salaries..,

      Delete
    43. Mueller barely did an investigation yet found a wealth of corrupt connections between Trump and Russia - corruption other investigators have found goes back decades involving various schemes including money laundering. Instead of letting Mueller sleepwalk through his milquetoast "investigation" Trump curiously decided to obstruct it, compounding Trump's corruption. Like with the mafia, these kind of corruptions are notoriously difficult to prove with forensics, so the evidence tends towards circumstance and inference. Now there are some in our society who can not process circumstance and inference, these things fly right over their heads - apparently you are one of theses people, no shame if genuine, maybe you are on some spectrum, then again maybe you are just being willfully ignorant. Sorry but no one is buying your Tiabbi nonsense, your efforts serve no good purpose. You are a fool. Apologies if you are easily triggered, please rant away with your empty garbage, gives us all a good tickle and chuckle.

      Delete
    44. There was nothing in the Mueller Report about Trump's Adderall addiction, either. Are you going to deny that too?

      Delete
    45. I don't need to scapegoat, rationalize or gaslight, you monumental asshole. My first vote was for George McGovern. I have zero faith in the intelligence of the average American voter. I would have been shocked if Hillary Clinton had won.

      Delete
    46. The issue is there's only lose, inconclusive evidence that ties Trump and Russia together in any kind of collusion or conspiracy. And there is evidence that the Clinton campaign pushed that connection before the election by falsely trying to create connections and then bringing them to the FBI and the media, who published them, and after they were published, Hillary Clinton herself tweeted about them, these connections that her campaign invented! There is strong evidence that they did that. It will play out in court soon. It's just important for everyone to understand that. Because we all want to be aligned with and working from the objective truths and not get caught up in subjectivity and confirmation bias.

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    47. We have to be fair to Trump and Trump voters. They are people just like us. They deserve a fair shake just like anybody else and we need to be honest if we have overreached in certain areas. We have to be moral, dignified and honest about these issues.

      Delete
    48. The issue is Donald J Chickenshit plotted and attempted a coup, incited an attack on the US Capitol and Hillary Clinton had nothing to do with it, fuckface.

      Delete
    49. We're going to have to see how that plays out. It's true that she did not have anything to do with that though. Until the time all the evidence is weighed we have to be honest about what we did to Trump in terms of falsely tying him to Russia. It's the fair and moral thing to do.

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    50. I feel like we both want to put honesty and truth before anything else. We certainly don't want to get swept up in believing things just because they are in accord with what we want. Don't you feel the same way?

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    51. Our values as Democrats are honesty, truth and acknowledging the dignity of others. Isn't it?

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    52. Don't you feel like we should acknowledge the lies that we have told about Trump and Russia working together? Think about the impact it had on his supporters. The last thing we want to do is be unfair to them.

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    53. Give me the name and address of the Republican voter who cares about something other than bigotry and white grievance. I'll send that mythical person a written apology ASAP.

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    54. We already have discussed how the Democratic Party is to blame for Trump's election, due to them still supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
      No Trump voter will forgive the Democrats bias against white supremacy.

      Delete
  8. I wondered the same thing. Some movie stars are leaving the state right now claiming they're afraid of things like this happening to them.

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  9. Bottom line: No one gives a flying phuque about either Bob - Saget or Somerby.

    Sad! (Not really.)

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  10. It's possible that to speculate after presenting facts is irresponsible.

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