Aug 172018
 
 August 17, 2018  Posted by at 1:34 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,


William Hogarth Humours of an Election, Plate 2 1754

 

Two thirds of Americans want the Mueller investigation (inquisition, someone called it) over by the midterm elections. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has said that if Mueller wants to interview Trump, he’ll have to do so before September 1, because the Trump camp doesn’t want to be the one to unduly influence the elections. Mueller himself appears to lean towards prolonging the case, and that may well be with an eye on doing exactly that.

And there’s something else as well: as soon as the investigation wraps up, Trump will demand a second special counsel, this time to scrutinize the role the ‘other side’ has played in the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath. He’s determined to get it, and he’ll fire both Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein if they try to stand in his way.

There have of course been tons of signs that it’s going to happen, but we got two significant ones just the past few days. The first is the termination of John Brennan’s security clearance. It looks impossible that no additional clearances will be revoked. There are more people who have them but would also be part of a second special counsel’s investigation. That doesn’t rhyme.

The second sign is Senator Rand Paul’s call for immunity for Julian Assange to come talk to the US senate about what he knows about Russian involvement in the 2016 election. Obviously, we know that he denies its very existence, and has offered to provide evidence to that end. But before he could do that, a potential deal with the DOJ to do so was torpedoed by then FBI chief James Comey and Senator Mark Warner.

Both will also be part of the second investigation. Rand Paul’s motivation is simple: Assange’s testimony could be a very significant part of the process of figuring out what actually happened. And that should be what everybody in Washington wants. Question is if they all really do. That’s -ostensibly- why there is the first, the Mueller Russian collusion, investigation. Truth finding.

But Mueller doesn’t appear to have found much of anything. At least, that we know of. He’s locked up Paul Manafort on charges unrelated to collusion, put him in isolation and dragged him before a jury. But don’t be surprised if Manafort is acquitted by that jury one of these days. The case against him seemed a lot more solid before than it does now. A jury that asks the judge to re-define ‘reasonable doubt’ already is in doubt, reasonable or not. And that is what reasonable doubt means.

 

But it wasn’t just Brennan and Comey and Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and all the rest of them in the intelligence community who played questionable roles around the election and the accusations of Russian meddling in it. The American media were also there, and very prominently. Which is why when 300 papers publish editorials pushing against Trump ‘attacking’ the media, you can’t help but -wryly- smile.

Why does Trump attack the press? Because they’ve been attacking him for two years, and they’re not letting go. So the press can attack the president, but he cannot fight back. That’s the rationale, but with the Mueller investigation not going anywhere it’s a hard one to keep alive.

There are three reasons for the behavior of the New York Times, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN et al. The first is political, they’re Democrat hornblowers. The second is their owners have a personal thing against Donald Trump. But these get trumped by the third reason: Trump is their golden goose. Their opposition makes them a fortune. All they need to do is publish articles 24/7 denouncing him. And they have for two years.

That puts the 300 papers’ editorials in a strange light. Many of them would have been fighting for their very lives if not for anti-Trump rhetoric. All 300 fit neatly and easily in one echo chamber. And, to put it mildly, inside that chamber, not everyone is always asking for evidence of everything that’s being said.

It’s not difficult to whoop up a storm there without crossing all your t’s. And after doing just that for 2 years and change, it seems perhaps a tad hypocritical to claim that you are honest journalists just trying to provide people with the news as it happened.

Because when you’ve published hundreds, thousands of articles about Russian meddling, and the special counsel that was named to a large degree because of those articles, fails to come up with any evidence of it, it will become obvious that you’ve not just, and honestly, been reporting the news ‘as it happened’. You have instead been making things up because you knew that would sell better.

And when the second special counsel starts, where will American media be? Sure, it may not happen before the midterms, and you may have hopes that the Democrats win those bigly, but even if that comes to pass (slim chance), Trump will still be president, and the hearings and interviews won’t be soft and mild. Also, there will be serious questions, under oath, about leaks to the press.

 

Still, whichever side of this particular fence you’re on, there’s one thing we should all be able to agree on. That is, when we get to count how many of the 300 editorials have actually mentioned, let alone defended, Julian Assange, and I’ll bet you that number is painfully close to zero, that is where we find out how honest this defense of the free press is.

If for you the free press means that you should be able to write and broadcast whatever you want, even if it’s lacking in evidence, as much of the Russiagate stuff obviously is, and you ‘forget’ to mention a man who has really been attacked and persecuted for years, for publishing files that are all about evidence, you are not honest, and therefore probably not worth saving.

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are the essence of the free press. A press that is neutral, objective, fearless and determined to get the truth out. The New York Times and CNN simply don’t fit that description -anymore-. So when their editors publish calls to protect free press, but they leave out the one person who really represents free press, and the one person who’s been tortured for exactly that, you have zero credibility.

Sure, you may appear to have credibility in your echo chamber, but that’s not where real life takes place, where evidence is available and where people can make up their own minds based on objective facts provided by real journalists.

You guys just blew this big time. You don’t care about free press, you care about your own asses. And the second special counsel is coming. Good luck. Oh, and we won’t forget your silencing of Assange, or your attacks on him. If you refuse to do it, WE will free the press.

 

 

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  • #42385

    William Hogarth Humours of an Election, Plate 2 1754   Two thirds of Americans want the Mueller investigation (inquisition, someone called it) ov
    [See the full post at: Free The Press]

    #42386
    Hotrod
    Participant

    Trump does himself no favors by being a pathological liar and surrounding himself with “the best and the brightest” grifters he can find. Nothing new for Washington DC.

    #42388

    So find facts and attack him on that. Russiagate is just a fantasy. But they care only about what sells, not if it’s true. That’s the opposite of Assange

    #42391
    zerosum
    Participant

    How can anyone figure out the truth?

    Lies and free money makes our social/economic system function.

    #42392
    rapier
    Participant

    Ca ching!

    Well at least you haven’t gone medieval on Social Justice Warriors, yet, I don’t think. Better step up your game IM.

    #42393
    zerosum
    Participant

    @ rapier

    I’m not a sjw
    It does not matter what I’ve figured out. I cannot change anything.

    #42396
    clueless
    Participant

    1. Show VALID, DOCUMENTED STATISTICS that two thirds of US citizens have voted anywhere to eliminate investigation that is being administrated by Mueller.
    a. reference the agency website, that you have found the statistics reported.
    b. reference the name of the agency, and their directors or board members that paid to have the
    voting.
    2. Otherwise, reference the SURVEY, how many people were surveyed. Who paid for the survey? Who analysed the survey. What is the percentage of error based on any comparative results of the survey.

    Get my drift????

    #42397
    clueless
    Participant

    Show some statistics and the sources when even 2/3 of the US population that can vote have even showed up to place their votes at any Federal Election to vote for the President of the United States.

    AND, anyway, the “votes” of the US citizenry really don’t matter. The only votes that really count are the HOW MANY VOTES by the electoral college in the US.

    If you are trying to sway public reaction, be honest at the bottomline. You are only showing that you are absolutely no better and WORSE than anyone you are condemning. Or, should I write attempting to “create reactions” to condemn for the up-coming elections in the US.

    #42398
    clueless
    Participant

    IF, and that’s a very big IF, at least in my mind, you really want to reveal some truth about the matter, why don’t you have a little bit of a talk-to with a Mr. Thomas A. Drake. Then do some writing, or get him to do some writing to attempt to reveal some “TRUTHS”, how you all see what is going on, and on, and on.

    #42410

    That people will come to my website and try and tell me what to do and how to do it will never cease to amuse me. I’m never satisfied with what I write, but I thought this one was quite good. So apparently did 100,000 people at Zero Hedge. The poll that says 2/3 of Americans want the inquisition over -would anyone doubt that?- is over at CNN https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/14/politics/cnn-poll-trump-russia-election/index.html.

    #42417
    steve from virginia
    Participant

    Citing the morons at Zero Hedge is never a good look.

    BTW: the media is owned by a small handful of billionaires (including the media in Russia and China) so what do you expect?

    #42438
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    steve from virginia

    You throw the baby out with the bath water; Ilargi, along with other notables, regularly are featured there.
    …and here you are…

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