Speaking to friends today about the media's mis-reporting of the WMD and Russian collusion issues I was appalled to hear one respond that WMDs were proven to exist and another that the Russian collusion charges would still be proven to be true. It's clear that the media is either under the government's control or is comprised of lemmings searching for the nearest cliff. Fortunately for the media they have created an audience that live in their own echo chambers and bring no capacity or desire to discern the truth. Contrary to Matt's conclusion, there is no reason to believe that anything will be learned by the average person from the debacle we have observed over the past two and a half years and the media need not worry about losing an audience.
Or Hillary,with the willful assistance of Comey,Mueller,Biden,Pelosi,Blinken,YatesClapper,Brennan,et al sold 25% of our entire uranium supply to Russia.Note that narya single Bush apparatchik said boo during the Russia/Ukraine/Ja 6/Whitmer bullshit.
As a thank you for this exhaustive examination of the entire “Russiagate” affair, I did something I’ve never done, paid for the privilege to thank you be subscribing.
I think your fear that this years-long abdication of the 4th Estate selling it’s birthright for a bowl of porridge is a bit of noticing too late the cow has left the barn.
The Donald, for good or ill, broke through the pack of vacuous president wannabes first, because he got angry with how the MSM treated him, and second by using social media to ridicule their obvious advocy for The Hillary.
I think the clearest departure for the MSM goes back to accepting Reagan’s talking points - letting Reagan make their jobs easier for them.
They came to love “access to power” - always a PART of the MSM, but in the past viewed with suspicion.
I’m not sure, given the fracturing of information gathering that has come to the fore in the rise of the internet, the MSM can ever regain the trust they have thrown away.
This article has been a breath of fresh air to me, and I pray, I truly PRAY that there are many other journalists out there who share your view of the pursuit of Truth, and the traditional role journalism has played in keeping politians honest.
Really, Peter? Do you mean that in a snarky "this is bad news and there is nothing 'fresh' about how bad the situation is", or are you just trying to naysay because you don't believe it. I'm not asking to be confrontational, I just want to know where you're at with all of this. I'm being plainly honest with you here.
Thanks for clarifying. I, too, believe Trump is corrupt, but if you are implying "compromised" means he is, in fact, a Russian operative I disagree.
Is there proof he's not? I think we'd all better wait for what we are allowed to see in the report.
I'll remind you though, that three investigations, headed by mostly Democrats, involving forty agents, nineteen lawyers, 500 interviews, 2800 subpoenas, et all, have only resulted in speculation of what "is" is -which ain't squat.
I'm not fan of the guy. I didn't vote for him. Do you think the report would say there was no evidence of collusion or coordination in three different ways if there was even a shred of evidence for them to pounce on? Why is Pelosi saying impeachment isn't worth it at this point?
I think it's important also to remember that Adam Schiff has been lying for two straight years about this. Former heads of the FBI and CIA have been CAUGHT lying about statements they made as "guests" of CNN and then answered correctly under oath.
People need to make a decision here: Are they going to get over their intense hatred for a guy, (hate-able though he may be,) or let the powers that be walk all over everyone's Constitutional rights?
Illegal spying, illegal wiretapping, illegal collections of ALL of our data, phone records, texts, e-mails... Is that OK just because you hate him?
You'd tear up the Constitution over that shit?
I hope not.
It's not something I'd like to compromise, no matter how much I dislike the guy.
If you must cast blame, cast it on the frigging DNC for boxing out Sanders and getting caught. Give them the credit for losing an election to a guy who handed them three campaign-ending news headlines each week.
Look at the data.
Democrats didn't show up to vote for Hillary. Why would they? They had been told for a year that he'd never win... and that she was a shoo-in.
Oh, irony.
Their own propaganda and thumbing the scales did them in and now we have to deal with this shit.
As for Adam Schiff, I have seen his ugly fat face lie all this time -I'm not going to believe a word he says. I wish he'd go back to whatever smelly troll hole he slithered out of and stop already.
I agree though, Trump is not "exonerated".
Do you really believe that just because someone raises legitimate questions about what the fuck is going on that they're "Trump supporters"? To be hated and shit on? Called racists?
I thought we had all had enough of that. I know I have.
I voted for Clinton. From the very start of this scandal I smelled a rat. For one thing, I figured when in hell has Trump needed collusion outside of bankers or other finaciers? And another, who in the hell would collude with a loose cannon, ( fill in the blankety blank) character like Donald Trump? Never mind the fact that this collusion is an attempt to usurp the U.S.A. General Election System, the #Russiagaters eat that scenario with both hands! This fantasy would involve Trump getting involved with people he doesn't really know ( or really trust) with people who are in a position to put all their trust in a very arguably untrustworthy accomplice.
Boy, that is some kind of conspiracy, if it were only true. No, loud mouth Donald Trump is what he has been to me all these years: a one of a kind and a proud American Citizen. I don't have to agree or vote for the guy to know he isn't a traitor.
And obstruction, obstruct what? there were no Russians, so nothing there. He can fire Comey for Breakfast if he wants too. Talking trash about Attorney General Sessions, what about a case Sessions recused himself over, where or how is that obstructing. Inflammatory tweets... yes, even creeps like Donald Trump have First Amendment Rights. Oh lets see, Oh an "Unpublished Draft" that contained erroneous material about Donny Jr. and the Russian lady Lawyer at Trump Tower. How can "Unpublished Material" be obstruction of Justice. Has anybody asked this question, " How come this so called Unpublished memo suddenly became a headline and a topic for OBJ?
Thank you Robert -- we agree. One area that I don't understand is Obama's role in all this. In the last days of his presidency he expulsed 20 to 30 Russia's diplomats -- that certainly contributed to Russia-gate fraud and hysteria. But why exactly (facts please) were they expelled? Obama was a "community organizer" after he graduated. What exactly did he do / accomplish / is there anything available on that?
And - the ANSWER: A a bit more on St. Obama and his CIA, FBI and NSA executives:
Barack Obama was/is a spook (i.e., CIA operative/spy ), from a spook family, and his political campaigns were financed by spooks… ). Snowden disclosed the all-encompassing surveillance of US population under St. Obama after Clapper directly lied about it in Senate and to all of us.
In 1965 CIA organized a coup against Indonesia founding president Sukarno by CIA-trained generals. The US considered Sukarno too progressive (he implemented land-reform – same reason for CIA coup in Guatemala which resulted with a genocide of high-land Mayas). CIA installed one of the most murderous military regime (under Suharto dictatorship) on Earth which killed more than two millions ( 2M ) civilians – the massacres are known as “The Jakarta Method” (see book by Vincent Bevins) used subsequently in Africa (Angola, Mozambique) and throughout Latin and Central America.
What is important here is that Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, worked for U.S. government agencies and allied NGOs—the Ford Foundation, Asia Foundation, Development Alternatives Inc., and United States Agency for International Development (USAID)—in Indonesia in the 1960s and 1970s as well as later in Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Thailand.
Obama’s mother married Indonesian Lt. Col. Lolo Soetoro; they had a daughter Maya Soetoro when Barack Obama was four. The colonel was from an aristocratic family which lost out in Sukarno’s land reform; the marriage was likely arranged, Obama’s mother may have acted as a female “honeypot” for the CIA whose job was to recruit assets.
Obama always lied and claimed that his mother did not know about the countless atrocities that were committed by the Suharto government, which is implausible given her CIA background and the fact that they were much reported on by mainstream newspapers at the time (although mostly favorably by right-wing media). Of significance, Obama underplayed his stepfather Lolo’s army rank in his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope.
Soetoro went on to become an executive at Mobil Oil and its liaison to Suharto, whose policies Obama’s mother praised. And – Obama became a labor and community “organizer” – while he actually worked for a large corporate foundation.
A Company Family: The Untold History of Obama and the CIA
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - October 1, 2021 ( Note: Photos themselves are truly fascinating )
A Company Family: The Untold History of Obama and the CIA - CovertAction Magazine
Obama as a “community organizer”. He actually worked for a large corporate foundation.
Obama embraces Tony Rezko, one of his earliest and top fundraisers who was sentenced to ten years in federal prison in 2011 for participating in political kickback schemes. Obama helped Rezko secure more than $14 million in taxpayer subsidies to build low-income housing facilities of poor quality after promoting the privatization of public housing.
What? What do you mean by "Obama's role?" He was president when all this shit was going down. He wanted to tell "the people" but, obviously, he couldn't because he'd be "interfering" in the election. How hard is that to understand? The intelligence people went to the top 8 of the Congress. They told them all about the Russian interference. McConnell wouldn't have anything to do with it. He's an asshole. And, today, he still is.
Indeed. Obama's team lied on the FISA application and wire-tapped Trump Tower. ONLY the DNC could get away with such a crime, and they ended up not getting anything useful anyway, but I'm betting no criminal indictments will come from the falsified FISA application.
If Obama can not tell the people, what did you expect a Senator to do exactly? The Agencies that we think of a "the government" are the executive branch. If the ehad of the Executive branch cannot do anything, what are you bliming on McConnell?
You seem to bounce from conspiracy to conspiracy friend. Obama was in on this Russiagate thing. It was certainly discussed at his level. the FBI does not get a FISA warrant against an active Presidential campaign without going up the chain. I believe it was Comey's notes that confirmed that no?
You just need to come to grips with the fact that it appears you have been duped. Be angry at those who duped you not those who point it out.
They told them about Russian interference being investigated based on a paid-for hit dossier that Clinton was responsible for.
When someone goes that far to "smear" someone during an election... it shows she has big hairy balls and she's arrogant. I mean that in the figurative sense, so bleach your mind of the image of her having actual balls. Hairy balls.
Oh yes, I decided to subscribe to your cause , hopefully it will be one of bringing the truth, just straight up truth to the people. If you want to write opinion, wonderful, just let your audience know what is a new piece and what is and opinion piece.
Me too. It seems that there aren't many reporting actual news besides him. I'm hoping he shares some good places to get real news.
I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only one here questioning all of this. I live in a VERY lefty town, and got some serious push back in a local forum just for asking the obvious question: IF there seems to be nothing in the report, who initiated this?
I voted Democrat most of my life, until 2016. Registered independent.
To see friends and family whipped up into severe mania over this for two years has been painful. If news organizations take advantage of their subscribers by blasting lies and garbage for three years, they should be held accountable -but not until whoever staged this thing is found and locked up.
Rachel Maddow actually shed tears Friday night when she realized her two years of conspiracy theorizing was over. Can't see how she wriggles her way out of this one.
“The biggest thing this affair has uncovered so far is Donald Trump paying off a porn star.”
I beg to differ. Mueller's investigation didn’t uncover the payment to Daniels. Daniels and her lawyer did that.
PS. I believe that, like Mueller's report, the Daniels Affair will also disappoint the Schadenfreude Crowd, as similar accusations couldn’t convict Edwards. He used actual donor money to pay off his baby momma vs Trump using his own money, to pay off a prostitute. No one can reasonably argue that keeping his affairs from his wife wasn’t even a partial reason for his payoffs.
Well, lets look at his angle. Trump wasn't paying off Daniels because he was running for President. No! Daniels blackmailed Trump because he was running for President!
Why wouldn't a mindbogglingly rich married man with a 11 or 12 year old son not want such scandal to be broadcast internationally.
Say what you will, but running for the U.S.A. Presidency puts one on the International stage. So Daniels gets 130K to keep her mouth shut and what does she do... she sings like a canary!
Look, whores are whores. and when a whore wants to shake down a client at some later date, I say same on her. If the stooge pays and the whore stiffs the stooge and sings anyway, then double shame and scorn on her. Since her word cannot be trusted even when money and legal nondisclosure agreements are in affect, I ask this question, why would anyone take her word seriously?
I don't disagree. She's a blackmailer. No one should have taken her seriously. Furthermore, what Trump does with his penis is none of our collective business. Same goes for Clinton or Daniels and her vagina.
Thank you. After this weekend, I had searched for an explanation. Your reporting puts it all into context. My greatest professional passion is the media. My heart breaks to read how the media abdicated all ethics and values. To present the case against WMD reporting clarifies it all. I can only hope the consequences are nowhere near as painful.
Uh, I believe you're absolutely full of it. I think the press, the media, did an excellent job covering these stories. Especially the Washington Post and the New York Times. I think you're just jealous, you and Glenn Greenwald, because, duh, you didn't break any of the stories yourselves. Granted, obviously, there were some missteps, but, no way can you compare it to the Iraq WMD nonsense. This country went to war because of that, you fool! Hundreds of thousands of people have died, including at least 4,000 American soldiers.
Are you in cahoots with Julian Assange like Greenwald is? Assange isn't left or right. He's just an idiot. He just wants to cause chaos whatever he does. And, look what he got. Is he proud of himself? So what if he hated Hillary Clinton. Now he's got the biggest asshole on the planet as President of this country.
So, I don't know Robert Mueller worth beans. I have no reason to not fully respect him. But, I really want to know his reasoning for "no collusion." I mean, his asshole son brought a Russian lawyer, with other Russians, to Trump Tower, specifically to "get dirt on Hillary." His campaign manager handed over polling data to a Russian operative at a cigar bar in Manhattan. He was kissing the ass of Russians trying to get his tower built in Moscow, during his campaign. OK. So, maybe it's not criminal conspiracy. Fine. But, I still want to know what Mueller calls that.
And, no obstruction. Right. So, now we can look forward from now on to have disgusting assholes as Presidents, ones who feel themselves kings.
Your website is Hate Inc. Wow. That's really positive, man.
You're on a roll, Matt. But: the Russiagate stuff was targeted towards a relatively specific part of the US electorate, compared with the WMD, which was aimed at all. Maybe your thesis can accommodate this, but I feel it's an important distinction.
Russiagate I believe was incredibly broad in its aims - I still think it will be used to justify a movement for censorship, policing of political speech, associations, media, and so on. On the foreign policy side we’ve already seen massive defense increases and more aggressive postures in Syria, Venezuela, even Ukraine, the Baltics - in the short term this was a story about Trump, in the long term it will be about asking for enhanced power to stop the threat.
If Russiagate ends up being about expanding defense spending, then one must ask was some one person or group responsible for this travesty? Or are we merely reaping the poison of a poorly orchestrated DNC campaign strategy augmented by a mendacious media frenzy? Has our system become so corrupt that it has begun to eat its own tail?
It's been eating it's tail for a long time... but this could be an even bigger hoax than just "the MSM against Trump" as a form of party-pandering. Sure, the left has gotten aboard the FoxNews carnival, but look deeper. Why are fake hate crimes being hoaxed? How come I have to face questioning whenever I go to Mexico just to have a vacation but somehow 20,000 people from Guatemala can literally WALK through their entire country? I feel as though much more is at play here, though I'm not going to sit here and make a claim outright that the powers that be are conspiring to rob us all of nationality, rights to be free from illegal search and of free speech, and for what I realize is an unpopular second amendment to most liberals, (so it's said in the goddamned news, anyway,). We're seeing the news now "reporting" a rise of "white nationalism" in Europe, and people are openly stating that a border wall is "white nationalism".
Hey, is it me, or is the globalist regime's popularity being undermined by it's own greed and it's insistence on making us all slaves for Soros and his ilk?
Fuck me... it still seems to be far more insidious than just "The DNC was rigging things to steal power". I know, it's not something I could confirm, but it reeks.
I had a similar thought. I think this is great work, but in my personal experience, I had a different take on the WMD and Russiagate stories. This is the personal take of someone who reads a fairly modest amount of news stories.
Granted I was in middle school when the WMD stories were being published but it seemed at the time that most news stories were claiming that there were WMDs in Iraq. While a few stories doubted that claim.
For Russiagate, my impression was that Trump breaks the law habitually and did a lot of illegal things related to his run for president, but that the Steele dossier was always considered pretty unreliable. Also, the only part of the dossier that I would generally hear about was the pee tape. It sounds like my take on that would have been different if I had read some of the articles that you mention in your post. By the time the Mueller report was released, I don't think too many people were expecting it to say that Trump was a Russian spy; but there were so many things that had seemingly been proven that people were surprised when more charges weren't brought. My understanding of the Mueller report is that there are three main reasons that Mueller didn't recommend more charges. First, Mueller never expanded his investigation beyond coordination with Russia and obstruction of justice. Second, Mueller took the stance that a sitting president cannot be charged. Third, Mueller defined coordination to require an agreement. There seemed to be some confusion at to what constituted a crime and there was a theory that merely accepting aid from Russia was enough, but Mueller disagreed.
Mueller charged people with procedurtal crimes that happened well before the timeline of his mandate and cwhich had nothing to do with collusion. That is literally all he did was clean up tax fraud and other BS from characters around the edges. I think claiming he "stuck to a strict interpretation of his mandate" is clearly false.
As I recall, the DOJ put no limits on what he could investigate. Which was one of the biggest issues, we launch a special council who can already do nearly as they please to investigate issue "Y", and after years and millions of taxpayer dollars they bring a had nful of charges for "X", "Z", and "W". If a regular agerncy did that it woud be called misapropriation. They prosecuted all the dogs and cats because otherwise they would come home empty handed asking for their expenses to be reimbursed...
Thank you Matt -- enjoyed every word and an astonishing journalistic effort !! Including the visit/pilgrimage to Noam -- wanting to update the seminal "Manufacturing of Consent"
There is another very important angle of the "Russia-gate" fraud. The "Hope and Change" fraud - Obama, in the last days of his failed presidency kept expulsing a large number of Russia's diplomats from the US....
Why exactly was he doing this? A collusion with DNC and "deep state" national "security" apparatus?
PS: I like Aaron Mate's term for Russia-gate fraud -- it was a "privilege protection racket." The only and real danger to "elites" (they have same donors) are progressives who threaten Ds and Rs privileges. Russia-gate fraud was needed to prevent real discussion on economic and inequality issues
This is a fantastic series, and pretty much everything in this particular installment rings perfectly true. But I don't get one line: "Stop. Just stop. Any journalist who goes there is just making it worse." Journalists may have completely screwed this story, and in precisely the way described, but "the 37 indictments? The convictions? The Trump tower revelations? The lies! The meeting with Don, Jr.?" are all, as near as I can tell, actual facts, and places where journalists need to go. The dots may have been connected in thoroughly irresponsible fashion, but that doesn't make the dots go away. Of course, this entire series has been devoted to the proposition that the way journalists do their job is destructive of the public good. But if only by accident, some disturbing things (disturbing to me, anyway) have come to light, and need further exploration. And while I don't trust the media to do its job responsibly, if they don't do their job at all, then the odds that we'll learn anything about anything drop considerably. That's how it looks to me, anyway. Maybe I missed the point--I'd appreciate clarification.
One interpretation is that these folks were wrong in such a bad way that they've blown their credibility. Even if those other dots still matter, they are doing more harm than good by going there because they've lost the trust necessary to do the job. That's how I read it.
Fair enough, but I'd argue that someone still needs to do it, and while it would be very nice to have more responsible journalists, you expose corruption with the journalists you have. Even the Times and the Post get it right sometimes, and speaking only for myself, I'd rather have them digging and poking than no one. Then I can make my own judgment.
The flip side of this is the suppression of the high crimes and misdemeanors committed by Biden in office and after leaving office on Ukraine. He ran the overthrow of a friendly democracy, and stuck his drug abusing son in the midst of it to profit hugely for the Biden family. This is incredibly brazen.
Touche’!! Biden is beyond corrupt and compromised.Imagine how often Hunter’s communications have been surveilled by Russia,China,Uzbekistan,Iraq,Ukraine,Iran,Romania,Belarus,the entire EU,Lithuania,et al.
If only the Bidens were the only criminal enterprise.Ukraine has been ground zero forAmerican political corruption and complicity.Cofer-Black,Bush cartel,Pelosi,Romney,Killery,Kerry,Mueller,Nuland,Yvonovich,MCCain,Bernie’s campaign manager,PodestasSoros,Fiona Hill,Kent,Attkisson,The Atlantic Council,(Burissma’s lobby group”,WhiteyBulger’s nephew,Doug Schoen,Lindsey Graham,McCain,Chalupa,Sid Blumenthal,John Bolton,Lanny Davis,Rick Wilson,Gates,Vindman,Sundland,Brennan,Klobachar,Zoe Lofgren,Chris Murphy,Devon Archer…To name a few.They are responsible for destroying Ukrainian/Russian stability. Ukraine finally elected a good guy,Zelensky, taking them by surprise,and we doubled down on provoking Putin.Building up NATO,destroying Trump’s presidency and annihilating Mike Flynn, who was on the verge of getting Putin to withdraw from Iran . He was a MoynihanDemocrat and well aware of our opportunistic warmongering for profit, breaking every part of Reagan’s deal with Russia.In exchange for the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we were not to further build up NATO,encroaching on Russia’s sovereignty
depressing to review how corrupt and insipid MSM has become- there doesnt seem to be much real reporting anymore aside from an occasional in depth investigative piece in The Onion.
I just heard the single, flat out honest journalist,Amy Kellogg,reporting from Russia.Putin is sick of the anti-Russian sentiment and NATO build.up and the West, fabricating storylines and “I shared Intel”.He wants an agreement,not the interference Russia is accused of.
Kellogg said he is not necessarily seeking conflict,but the “Anglo Saxon “ NATO EU and US “ are testing him.
He’s very cagey and very smart.He’s not a Communist.But whatever is lurking in the Deep State CCP globalist kleptotechnocracy (my opinion)is .My grandparents were Russian immigrants.They hated the Communist regime,but loved Russian culture,I.e. the Great composers, ballet,Art,gymnasts,literature,sciences,architecture ( minarets),ethnic cuisine.My stepfather,son of Russian immigrants, is a Constitutional, patriotic American,served in WW11 believes Putin is a strongman,corrupt,but not Communist and typical of Russian culture.Push him and he’ll push back harder, proving his “ machismo”. BTW, my family is Jewish.Putin is not an antisemite.Not even close, unlike the CommunoFascist left and it’s self loathers.He’s not an Islamist,but push him,he’ll seek options. Unlike the globalist elite and far left Islamist empathizes.And Biden,Kerry,McMaster,Soros and the “ EU NATO “Anglo-Saxon” Nazi empathizers and opportunists😂
Speaking to friends today about the media's mis-reporting of the WMD and Russian collusion issues I was appalled to hear one respond that WMDs were proven to exist and another that the Russian collusion charges would still be proven to be true. It's clear that the media is either under the government's control or is comprised of lemmings searching for the nearest cliff. Fortunately for the media they have created an audience that live in their own echo chambers and bring no capacity or desire to discern the truth. Contrary to Matt's conclusion, there is no reason to believe that anything will be learned by the average person from the debacle we have observed over the past two and a half years and the media need not worry about losing an audience.
Or Hillary,with the willful assistance of Comey,Mueller,Biden,Pelosi,Blinken,YatesClapper,Brennan,et al sold 25% of our entire uranium supply to Russia.Note that narya single Bush apparatchik said boo during the Russia/Ukraine/Ja 6/Whitmer bullshit.
At least in the case of Iraqi WMDs there was documented history of Hussein's regime using them
I have no idea what you're really saying here.
I thought he was pretty clear myself.
As a thank you for this exhaustive examination of the entire “Russiagate” affair, I did something I’ve never done, paid for the privilege to thank you be subscribing.
I think your fear that this years-long abdication of the 4th Estate selling it’s birthright for a bowl of porridge is a bit of noticing too late the cow has left the barn.
The Donald, for good or ill, broke through the pack of vacuous president wannabes first, because he got angry with how the MSM treated him, and second by using social media to ridicule their obvious advocy for The Hillary.
I think the clearest departure for the MSM goes back to accepting Reagan’s talking points - letting Reagan make their jobs easier for them.
They came to love “access to power” - always a PART of the MSM, but in the past viewed with suspicion.
I’m not sure, given the fracturing of information gathering that has come to the fore in the rise of the internet, the MSM can ever regain the trust they have thrown away.
This article has been a breath of fresh air to me, and I pray, I truly PRAY that there are many other journalists out there who share your view of the pursuit of Truth, and the traditional role journalism has played in keeping politians honest.
This has definitely NOT been a breath of fresh air to me. Please.
Really, Peter? Do you mean that in a snarky "this is bad news and there is nothing 'fresh' about how bad the situation is", or are you just trying to naysay because you don't believe it. I'm not asking to be confrontational, I just want to know where you're at with all of this. I'm being plainly honest with you here.
I believe Trump is totally corrupt and compromised. And, “Russiagate,”
whatever you want to call it, was a necessary investigation. We’ve yet to
even see yet what was found. But, it doesn’t exonerate the idiot, or his
minions. Check out what Adam Schiff said in the House last Thursday.
Other than that, I honestly can’t remember what was said here. It was last
week.
Thanks for clarifying. I, too, believe Trump is corrupt, but if you are implying "compromised" means he is, in fact, a Russian operative I disagree.
Is there proof he's not? I think we'd all better wait for what we are allowed to see in the report.
I'll remind you though, that three investigations, headed by mostly Democrats, involving forty agents, nineteen lawyers, 500 interviews, 2800 subpoenas, et all, have only resulted in speculation of what "is" is -which ain't squat.
I'm not fan of the guy. I didn't vote for him. Do you think the report would say there was no evidence of collusion or coordination in three different ways if there was even a shred of evidence for them to pounce on? Why is Pelosi saying impeachment isn't worth it at this point?
I think it's important also to remember that Adam Schiff has been lying for two straight years about this. Former heads of the FBI and CIA have been CAUGHT lying about statements they made as "guests" of CNN and then answered correctly under oath.
People need to make a decision here: Are they going to get over their intense hatred for a guy, (hate-able though he may be,) or let the powers that be walk all over everyone's Constitutional rights?
Illegal spying, illegal wiretapping, illegal collections of ALL of our data, phone records, texts, e-mails... Is that OK just because you hate him?
You'd tear up the Constitution over that shit?
I hope not.
It's not something I'd like to compromise, no matter how much I dislike the guy.
If you must cast blame, cast it on the frigging DNC for boxing out Sanders and getting caught. Give them the credit for losing an election to a guy who handed them three campaign-ending news headlines each week.
Look at the data.
Democrats didn't show up to vote for Hillary. Why would they? They had been told for a year that he'd never win... and that she was a shoo-in.
Oh, irony.
Their own propaganda and thumbing the scales did them in and now we have to deal with this shit.
As for Adam Schiff, I have seen his ugly fat face lie all this time -I'm not going to believe a word he says. I wish he'd go back to whatever smelly troll hole he slithered out of and stop already.
I agree though, Trump is not "exonerated".
Do you really believe that just because someone raises legitimate questions about what the fuck is going on that they're "Trump supporters"? To be hated and shit on? Called racists?
I thought we had all had enough of that. I know I have.
I voted for Clinton. From the very start of this scandal I smelled a rat. For one thing, I figured when in hell has Trump needed collusion outside of bankers or other finaciers? And another, who in the hell would collude with a loose cannon, ( fill in the blankety blank) character like Donald Trump? Never mind the fact that this collusion is an attempt to usurp the U.S.A. General Election System, the #Russiagaters eat that scenario with both hands! This fantasy would involve Trump getting involved with people he doesn't really know ( or really trust) with people who are in a position to put all their trust in a very arguably untrustworthy accomplice.
Boy, that is some kind of conspiracy, if it were only true. No, loud mouth Donald Trump is what he has been to me all these years: a one of a kind and a proud American Citizen. I don't have to agree or vote for the guy to know he isn't a traitor.
And obstruction, obstruct what? there were no Russians, so nothing there. He can fire Comey for Breakfast if he wants too. Talking trash about Attorney General Sessions, what about a case Sessions recused himself over, where or how is that obstructing. Inflammatory tweets... yes, even creeps like Donald Trump have First Amendment Rights. Oh lets see, Oh an "Unpublished Draft" that contained erroneous material about Donny Jr. and the Russian lady Lawyer at Trump Tower. How can "Unpublished Material" be obstruction of Justice. Has anybody asked this question, " How come this so called Unpublished memo suddenly became a headline and a topic for OBJ?
Thank you Robert -- we agree. One area that I don't understand is Obama's role in all this. In the last days of his presidency he expulsed 20 to 30 Russia's diplomats -- that certainly contributed to Russia-gate fraud and hysteria. But why exactly (facts please) were they expelled? Obama was a "community organizer" after he graduated. What exactly did he do / accomplish / is there anything available on that?
Same questions, of course, to Matt Taibbi... ;-)) And, once again, invaluable detailed effort --- BRAVO
And - the ANSWER: A a bit more on St. Obama and his CIA, FBI and NSA executives:
Barack Obama was/is a spook (i.e., CIA operative/spy ), from a spook family, and his political campaigns were financed by spooks… ). Snowden disclosed the all-encompassing surveillance of US population under St. Obama after Clapper directly lied about it in Senate and to all of us.
In 1965 CIA organized a coup against Indonesia founding president Sukarno by CIA-trained generals. The US considered Sukarno too progressive (he implemented land-reform – same reason for CIA coup in Guatemala which resulted with a genocide of high-land Mayas). CIA installed one of the most murderous military regime (under Suharto dictatorship) on Earth which killed more than two millions ( 2M ) civilians – the massacres are known as “The Jakarta Method” (see book by Vincent Bevins) used subsequently in Africa (Angola, Mozambique) and throughout Latin and Central America.
What is important here is that Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, worked for U.S. government agencies and allied NGOs—the Ford Foundation, Asia Foundation, Development Alternatives Inc., and United States Agency for International Development (USAID)—in Indonesia in the 1960s and 1970s as well as later in Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Thailand.
Obama’s mother married Indonesian Lt. Col. Lolo Soetoro; they had a daughter Maya Soetoro when Barack Obama was four. The colonel was from an aristocratic family which lost out in Sukarno’s land reform; the marriage was likely arranged, Obama’s mother may have acted as a female “honeypot” for the CIA whose job was to recruit assets.
Obama always lied and claimed that his mother did not know about the countless atrocities that were committed by the Suharto government, which is implausible given her CIA background and the fact that they were much reported on by mainstream newspapers at the time (although mostly favorably by right-wing media). Of significance, Obama underplayed his stepfather Lolo’s army rank in his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope.
Soetoro went on to become an executive at Mobil Oil and its liaison to Suharto, whose policies Obama’s mother praised. And – Obama became a labor and community “organizer” – while he actually worked for a large corporate foundation.
A Company Family: The Untold History of Obama and the CIA
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - October 1, 2021 ( Note: Photos themselves are truly fascinating )
A Company Family: The Untold History of Obama and the CIA - CovertAction Magazine
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/10/01/a-company-family-the-untold-history-of-obama-and-the-cia/
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A Company Family: The untold history of Obama and the CIA
https://mronline.org/2021/10/07/a-company-family-the-untold-history-of-obama-and-the-cia/
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Barack Obama’s Father Identified as CIA Asset in U.S. Drive to “Recolonize” Africa During Early Days of the Cold War
By Gerald Horne - February 7, 2022
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/02/07/barack-obamas-father-identified-as-cia-asset-in-u-s-drive-to-recolonize-africa-during-early-days-of-the-cold-war/
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Obama as a “community organizer”. He actually worked for a large corporate foundation.
Obama embraces Tony Rezko, one of his earliest and top fundraisers who was sentenced to ten years in federal prison in 2011 for participating in political kickback schemes. Obama helped Rezko secure more than $14 million in taxpayer subsidies to build low-income housing facilities of poor quality after promoting the privatization of public housing.
What? What do you mean by "Obama's role?" He was president when all this shit was going down. He wanted to tell "the people" but, obviously, he couldn't because he'd be "interfering" in the election. How hard is that to understand? The intelligence people went to the top 8 of the Congress. They told them all about the Russian interference. McConnell wouldn't have anything to do with it. He's an asshole. And, today, he still is.
Indeed. Obama's team lied on the FISA application and wire-tapped Trump Tower. ONLY the DNC could get away with such a crime, and they ended up not getting anything useful anyway, but I'm betting no criminal indictments will come from the falsified FISA application.
If Obama can not tell the people, what did you expect a Senator to do exactly? The Agencies that we think of a "the government" are the executive branch. If the ehad of the Executive branch cannot do anything, what are you bliming on McConnell?
You seem to bounce from conspiracy to conspiracy friend. Obama was in on this Russiagate thing. It was certainly discussed at his level. the FBI does not get a FISA warrant against an active Presidential campaign without going up the chain. I believe it was Comey's notes that confirmed that no?
You just need to come to grips with the fact that it appears you have been duped. Be angry at those who duped you not those who point it out.
They told them about Russian interference being investigated based on a paid-for hit dossier that Clinton was responsible for.
When someone goes that far to "smear" someone during an election... it shows she has big hairy balls and she's arrogant. I mean that in the figurative sense, so bleach your mind of the image of her having actual balls. Hairy balls.
hahahah
Thank you Peter but ---- why exactly Obama was expulsing Russia's diplomats (about 20-30 of them) in the last days of his presidency?
Do you know why? But with FACTS please.
Or was he the part of the invented (in desperation) of Russia-gate FRAUD?
Because the Russians had interfered in our election. That’s why.
Oh yes, I decided to subscribe to your cause , hopefully it will be one of bringing the truth, just straight up truth to the people. If you want to write opinion, wonderful, just let your audience know what is a new piece and what is and opinion piece.
Me too. It seems that there aren't many reporting actual news besides him. I'm hoping he shares some good places to get real news.
I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only one here questioning all of this. I live in a VERY lefty town, and got some serious push back in a local forum just for asking the obvious question: IF there seems to be nothing in the report, who initiated this?
I voted Democrat most of my life, until 2016. Registered independent.
To see friends and family whipped up into severe mania over this for two years has been painful. If news organizations take advantage of their subscribers by blasting lies and garbage for three years, they should be held accountable -but not until whoever staged this thing is found and locked up.
Rachel Maddow actually shed tears Friday night when she realized her two years of conspiracy theorizing was over. Can't see how she wriggles her way out of this one.
“The biggest thing this affair has uncovered so far is Donald Trump paying off a porn star.”
I beg to differ. Mueller's investigation didn’t uncover the payment to Daniels. Daniels and her lawyer did that.
PS. I believe that, like Mueller's report, the Daniels Affair will also disappoint the Schadenfreude Crowd, as similar accusations couldn’t convict Edwards. He used actual donor money to pay off his baby momma vs Trump using his own money, to pay off a prostitute. No one can reasonably argue that keeping his affairs from his wife wasn’t even a partial reason for his payoffs.
Well, lets look at his angle. Trump wasn't paying off Daniels because he was running for President. No! Daniels blackmailed Trump because he was running for President!
Why wouldn't a mindbogglingly rich married man with a 11 or 12 year old son not want such scandal to be broadcast internationally.
Say what you will, but running for the U.S.A. Presidency puts one on the International stage. So Daniels gets 130K to keep her mouth shut and what does she do... she sings like a canary!
Look, whores are whores. and when a whore wants to shake down a client at some later date, I say same on her. If the stooge pays and the whore stiffs the stooge and sings anyway, then double shame and scorn on her. Since her word cannot be trusted even when money and legal nondisclosure agreements are in affect, I ask this question, why would anyone take her word seriously?
I don't disagree. She's a blackmailer. No one should have taken her seriously. Furthermore, what Trump does with his penis is none of our collective business. Same goes for Clinton or Daniels and her vagina.
Thank you. After this weekend, I had searched for an explanation. Your reporting puts it all into context. My greatest professional passion is the media. My heart breaks to read how the media abdicated all ethics and values. To present the case against WMD reporting clarifies it all. I can only hope the consequences are nowhere near as painful.
Uh, I believe you're absolutely full of it. I think the press, the media, did an excellent job covering these stories. Especially the Washington Post and the New York Times. I think you're just jealous, you and Glenn Greenwald, because, duh, you didn't break any of the stories yourselves. Granted, obviously, there were some missteps, but, no way can you compare it to the Iraq WMD nonsense. This country went to war because of that, you fool! Hundreds of thousands of people have died, including at least 4,000 American soldiers.
Are you in cahoots with Julian Assange like Greenwald is? Assange isn't left or right. He's just an idiot. He just wants to cause chaos whatever he does. And, look what he got. Is he proud of himself? So what if he hated Hillary Clinton. Now he's got the biggest asshole on the planet as President of this country.
So, I don't know Robert Mueller worth beans. I have no reason to not fully respect him. But, I really want to know his reasoning for "no collusion." I mean, his asshole son brought a Russian lawyer, with other Russians, to Trump Tower, specifically to "get dirt on Hillary." His campaign manager handed over polling data to a Russian operative at a cigar bar in Manhattan. He was kissing the ass of Russians trying to get his tower built in Moscow, during his campaign. OK. So, maybe it's not criminal conspiracy. Fine. But, I still want to know what Mueller calls that.
And, no obstruction. Right. So, now we can look forward from now on to have disgusting assholes as Presidents, ones who feel themselves kings.
Your website is Hate Inc. Wow. That's really positive, man.
You're on a roll, Matt. But: the Russiagate stuff was targeted towards a relatively specific part of the US electorate, compared with the WMD, which was aimed at all. Maybe your thesis can accommodate this, but I feel it's an important distinction.
Russiagate I believe was incredibly broad in its aims - I still think it will be used to justify a movement for censorship, policing of political speech, associations, media, and so on. On the foreign policy side we’ve already seen massive defense increases and more aggressive postures in Syria, Venezuela, even Ukraine, the Baltics - in the short term this was a story about Trump, in the long term it will be about asking for enhanced power to stop the threat.
If Russiagate ends up being about expanding defense spending, then one must ask was some one person or group responsible for this travesty? Or are we merely reaping the poison of a poorly orchestrated DNC campaign strategy augmented by a mendacious media frenzy? Has our system become so corrupt that it has begun to eat its own tail?
It's been eating it's tail for a long time... but this could be an even bigger hoax than just "the MSM against Trump" as a form of party-pandering. Sure, the left has gotten aboard the FoxNews carnival, but look deeper. Why are fake hate crimes being hoaxed? How come I have to face questioning whenever I go to Mexico just to have a vacation but somehow 20,000 people from Guatemala can literally WALK through their entire country? I feel as though much more is at play here, though I'm not going to sit here and make a claim outright that the powers that be are conspiring to rob us all of nationality, rights to be free from illegal search and of free speech, and for what I realize is an unpopular second amendment to most liberals, (so it's said in the goddamned news, anyway,). We're seeing the news now "reporting" a rise of "white nationalism" in Europe, and people are openly stating that a border wall is "white nationalism".
Hey, is it me, or is the globalist regime's popularity being undermined by it's own greed and it's insistence on making us all slaves for Soros and his ilk?
Fuck me... it still seems to be far more insidious than just "The DNC was rigging things to steal power". I know, it's not something I could confirm, but it reeks.
I had a similar thought. I think this is great work, but in my personal experience, I had a different take on the WMD and Russiagate stories. This is the personal take of someone who reads a fairly modest amount of news stories.
Granted I was in middle school when the WMD stories were being published but it seemed at the time that most news stories were claiming that there were WMDs in Iraq. While a few stories doubted that claim.
For Russiagate, my impression was that Trump breaks the law habitually and did a lot of illegal things related to his run for president, but that the Steele dossier was always considered pretty unreliable. Also, the only part of the dossier that I would generally hear about was the pee tape. It sounds like my take on that would have been different if I had read some of the articles that you mention in your post. By the time the Mueller report was released, I don't think too many people were expecting it to say that Trump was a Russian spy; but there were so many things that had seemingly been proven that people were surprised when more charges weren't brought. My understanding of the Mueller report is that there are three main reasons that Mueller didn't recommend more charges. First, Mueller never expanded his investigation beyond coordination with Russia and obstruction of justice. Second, Mueller took the stance that a sitting president cannot be charged. Third, Mueller defined coordination to require an agreement. There seemed to be some confusion at to what constituted a crime and there was a theory that merely accepting aid from Russia was enough, but Mueller disagreed.
Mueller charged people with procedurtal crimes that happened well before the timeline of his mandate and cwhich had nothing to do with collusion. That is literally all he did was clean up tax fraud and other BS from characters around the edges. I think claiming he "stuck to a strict interpretation of his mandate" is clearly false.
As I recall, the DOJ put no limits on what he could investigate. Which was one of the biggest issues, we launch a special council who can already do nearly as they please to investigate issue "Y", and after years and millions of taxpayer dollars they bring a had nful of charges for "X", "Z", and "W". If a regular agerncy did that it woud be called misapropriation. They prosecuted all the dogs and cats because otherwise they would come home empty handed asking for their expenses to be reimbursed...
Thank you Matt -- enjoyed every word and an astonishing journalistic effort !! Including the visit/pilgrimage to Noam -- wanting to update the seminal "Manufacturing of Consent"
There is another very important angle of the "Russia-gate" fraud. The "Hope and Change" fraud - Obama, in the last days of his failed presidency kept expulsing a large number of Russia's diplomats from the US....
Why exactly was he doing this? A collusion with DNC and "deep state" national "security" apparatus?
PS: I like Aaron Mate's term for Russia-gate fraud -- it was a "privilege protection racket." The only and real danger to "elites" (they have same donors) are progressives who threaten Ds and Rs privileges. Russia-gate fraud was needed to prevent real discussion on economic and inequality issues
Thank you!
infamously including a story that bomber Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague.... Michael Cohen was at that meeting right?
Very funny.
This is a fantastic series, and pretty much everything in this particular installment rings perfectly true. But I don't get one line: "Stop. Just stop. Any journalist who goes there is just making it worse." Journalists may have completely screwed this story, and in precisely the way described, but "the 37 indictments? The convictions? The Trump tower revelations? The lies! The meeting with Don, Jr.?" are all, as near as I can tell, actual facts, and places where journalists need to go. The dots may have been connected in thoroughly irresponsible fashion, but that doesn't make the dots go away. Of course, this entire series has been devoted to the proposition that the way journalists do their job is destructive of the public good. But if only by accident, some disturbing things (disturbing to me, anyway) have come to light, and need further exploration. And while I don't trust the media to do its job responsibly, if they don't do their job at all, then the odds that we'll learn anything about anything drop considerably. That's how it looks to me, anyway. Maybe I missed the point--I'd appreciate clarification.
One interpretation is that these folks were wrong in such a bad way that they've blown their credibility. Even if those other dots still matter, they are doing more harm than good by going there because they've lost the trust necessary to do the job. That's how I read it.
Fair enough, but I'd argue that someone still needs to do it, and while it would be very nice to have more responsible journalists, you expose corruption with the journalists you have. Even the Times and the Post get it right sometimes, and speaking only for myself, I'd rather have them digging and poking than no one. Then I can make my own judgment.
im sure this needs updating in a post durham report world (post truth!!) but it shud be your pinned article
The flip side of this is the suppression of the high crimes and misdemeanors committed by Biden in office and after leaving office on Ukraine. He ran the overthrow of a friendly democracy, and stuck his drug abusing son in the midst of it to profit hugely for the Biden family. This is incredibly brazen.
Touche’!! Biden is beyond corrupt and compromised.Imagine how often Hunter’s communications have been surveilled by Russia,China,Uzbekistan,Iraq,Ukraine,Iran,Romania,Belarus,the entire EU,Lithuania,et al.
If only the Bidens were the only criminal enterprise.Ukraine has been ground zero forAmerican political corruption and complicity.Cofer-Black,Bush cartel,Pelosi,Romney,Killery,Kerry,Mueller,Nuland,Yvonovich,MCCain,Bernie’s campaign manager,PodestasSoros,Fiona Hill,Kent,Attkisson,The Atlantic Council,(Burissma’s lobby group”,WhiteyBulger’s nephew,Doug Schoen,Lindsey Graham,McCain,Chalupa,Sid Blumenthal,John Bolton,Lanny Davis,Rick Wilson,Gates,Vindman,Sundland,Brennan,Klobachar,Zoe Lofgren,Chris Murphy,Devon Archer…To name a few.They are responsible for destroying Ukrainian/Russian stability. Ukraine finally elected a good guy,Zelensky, taking them by surprise,and we doubled down on provoking Putin.Building up NATO,destroying Trump’s presidency and annihilating Mike Flynn, who was on the verge of getting Putin to withdraw from Iran . He was a MoynihanDemocrat and well aware of our opportunistic warmongering for profit, breaking every part of Reagan’s deal with Russia.In exchange for the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we were not to further build up NATO,encroaching on Russia’s sovereignty
depressing to review how corrupt and insipid MSM has become- there doesnt seem to be much real reporting anymore aside from an occasional in depth investigative piece in The Onion.
I just heard the single, flat out honest journalist,Amy Kellogg,reporting from Russia.Putin is sick of the anti-Russian sentiment and NATO build.up and the West, fabricating storylines and “I shared Intel”.He wants an agreement,not the interference Russia is accused of.
Kellogg said he is not necessarily seeking conflict,but the “Anglo Saxon “ NATO EU and US “ are testing him.
He’s very cagey and very smart.He’s not a Communist.But whatever is lurking in the Deep State CCP globalist kleptotechnocracy (my opinion)is .My grandparents were Russian immigrants.They hated the Communist regime,but loved Russian culture,I.e. the Great composers, ballet,Art,gymnasts,literature,sciences,architecture ( minarets),ethnic cuisine.My stepfather,son of Russian immigrants, is a Constitutional, patriotic American,served in WW11 believes Putin is a strongman,corrupt,but not Communist and typical of Russian culture.Push him and he’ll push back harder, proving his “ machismo”. BTW, my family is Jewish.Putin is not an antisemite.Not even close, unlike the CommunoFascist left and it’s self loathers.He’s not an Islamist,but push him,he’ll seek options. Unlike the globalist elite and far left Islamist empathizes.And Biden,Kerry,McMaster,Soros and the “ EU NATO “Anglo-Saxon” Nazi empathizers and opportunists😂