Conservative 'news' outlets didn't like Comey's testimony—so they created a fake version instead

Sean Hannity

By Hunter  

Wednesday Jun 14, 2017 · 6:31 PM PDT

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The New York Times has a good look at how one particular conspiracy theory, a completely false notion that ex-FBI director James Comey said Trump did not ask he halt the Flynn investigation in his mid-May Senate testimony despite Comey in fact asserting no such thing, ricocheted around the usual conservative sites in a transparent hoax. It started with troll Jack Posobiec, who simply made it up. Breitbart and Alex Jones jumped on it and soon it made it to Rush Limbaugh and, of course, Fox News' Sean Hannity.

It was an absolute fraud, and one that could easily have been proven a fraud by anyone who bothered to check—and it's difficult to believe that the entire staff of Breitbart and Sean Hannity's show were so uninformed as to the explosive nature of Comey's testimony that they could have plausibly believed it in the first place.

Comey's testimony about Trump pressuring him to drop the investigation was the top news story of the day; peddling a tweet from a known hoaxer that claims the exact opposite can't be described as "falling for" a hoax. It counts as being an accessory to it. Sean Hannity and his ilk were spreading the false version on purpose.

In an email, Mr. Posobiec described his work as “reality journalism — part investigative, part activist, part commentary.” A day before his tweet, the White House had allowed him into an Oval Office photo op with the president, and he tried to ask a question about Seth Rich, the murdered Democratic National Committee staff member.

The reason for peddling the hoaxes is simple: Many or most of their followers will believe them. They won't check. So it doesn't matter whether the news they present is entirely fabricated. They will get the desired effect—angry conservatives obligingly believing the conservative president has been vindicated—and suffer no consequences no matter how quickly their claims are proven false in other venues. It helps when you have an administration eager to help the effort. It helps more to have already pre-segregated news markets such that conservative fans aren’t likely to ever find out you’ve lied to them.

“The ability to mitigate such disinformation campaigns was far easier in the 1990s,” said Chris Lehane, who worked as an aide in the Clinton White House. Back then, he added, “for the most part the existing distribution channels were not as segmented across ideological lines that, in effect, create parallel realities that run along ideological grounds.”

It's a conservative propaganda effort. It's the dissemination of provably false information up and down the conservative "news" chain, from the lowest dregs to the Fox News cameras, facilitated by a conservative movement so contemptuous of mere objective reality that they don’t just tolerate, but demand they be given more pleasing versions.

The Times doesn't touch on just how frighteningly dangerous the embrace of such tactics is. It is the cornerstone of authoritarian, fundamentalist, and fascist governments. When the government and their compliant media figures simply alter the news to best benefit the party, that's the end of things. Democracy cannot exist in such places, and there is no informed consent of the governed if the governed are simply given whatever false information will render them most compliant.

Republicans rush to politicize shooting at congressional baseball practice

By Laura Clawson  

Wednesday Jun 14, 2017 · 6:45 AM PDT

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One of the rituals in the immediate wake of a mass shooting in America is for people who support stronger gun laws to be told not to politicize it, a rule that in no way applies to the gun-loving crowd. And with four people wounded, including Rep. Steve Scalise, in a shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice Wednesday morning, the push is on to politicize the event from the right. 

Donald Trump Jr. retweeted someone linking the shooting to the production of Julius Caesar featuring a Trump-like Caesar. (Still waiting on the retroactive outrage over an Obama-era production featuring an Obama-like Caesar.) 

Kellyanne Conway retweeted—with hashtag “this”—a quote from one of the Republicans in attendance at the practice saying someone he thought may have been the shooter had asked if it was Republicans or Democrats practicing. 

Rep. Chris Collins pointed a finger at Democrats, saying “The rhetoric has been outrageous, the finger-pointing, just the tone and the angst and the anger directed at Donald Trump” and that this can “fuel the fires.”

For the record, we still don’t know anything about the shooter, and whether it turns out to be politically motivated or not and whatever his politics, shooting people is a terrible thing. But whatever you do, don’t politicize it by pointing out that stronger gun laws might possibly have made it harder for the shooter to get a gun. Or to get a gun that could get off so many shots so quickly. Possibly! Sorry for getting all political on you, there—I realize that’s a right reserved for Donald Trump Jr.

And for the record:

Virginia:
No background checks
No licensing
No registration
No permit req’d for concealed carry of long guns
Open carry long guns & handguns

Trump's Stalwart Base Is Deserting Him, According To A New Poll; White House Freaking Out

Trump's appeal ain't what it used to be.

By ursulafaw  

Monday Jun 12, 2017 · 2:35 PM PDT

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Trusting polls is never a good idea when it comes to Donald Trump. But it would be delicious if Nate Silver is right and the people who would "walk over glass" for Trump are deserting him.

Axios published this report:

Sources both inside and close to the White House are worrying about a loss of energy among the President's base — or as one advisor colorfully put it, the folks who'd "walk over glass" for Trump.
Two trends that are troubling them:Trump's strong approval has fallen quickly:
As Nate Silver outlines in this late May article titled "Donald Trump's base is shrinking": "There's been a considerable decline in the number of Americans who strongly approve of Trump, from a peak of around 30 percent in February to just 21 or 22 percent of the electorate now. (The decline in Trump's strong approval ratings is larger than the overall decline in his approval ratings, in fact.)
Far from having unconditional love from his base, Trump has already lost almost a third of his strong support."Slide among whites without college degrees: Only 46% of whites with no college degree approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, according to the most recent Quinnipiac University poll. In the same poll in early March, 60 percent of whites without college degrees — a group that was key to Trump's victory — approved of his job performance.

Currently the only thing more unpopular than Trump himself is his health care bill, which has an approval rating of 17% at last glance.

Highline Fire: Firefighters Prepare for High Temperatures and Up Canyon Winds

June 13, 2017 Morning Update

 

Acres: 933 acres (based on infrared flight)                            

Start Date: June 10, 2017

Cause: Unknown, under investigation                                    

Origin Location: 8 mi N of Payson in the 1990 Dude Fire Scar

Containment: 0%                                                                            

Fuels: Grass, brush, heavy dead and down, Ponderosa pine                                                                       and mixed conifer

Total personnel: 459

Crews completed strategic firing operations on the fire’s southwest flank along the Highline Trail yesterday and are working to improve these lines.  Firefighters strengthened fireline on the fire’s north side, tying it to the Bear Fire, which has played a key role in holding the northwest corner of the fire.  Firefighters face multiple hazards that include rolling debris, steep terrain, high temperatures, and dry fuels.

 

Today, fire crews will work to hold the fire north of Highline Trail.  As a precaution, crews and dozers are building contingency lines south of the Highline Trail and preparing communities for structural defense.  Homeowners can assist in making Firewise preparations around their homes. Firefighters may use strategic firing operations to remove unburned fuels between primary containment lines and the main fire.  Crews will continue to improve containment lines above the Rim.

Helicopters and fixed wing air tankers will be used to support firefighters on the ground.  

 

Hotter, drier weather is expected to increase over the next few days. While winds are expected to be lighter today, temperatures are likely to climb over the next several days. Lower humidities will result in increased fire behavior. 

 

Today topography will drive fire behavior. Fire activity is expected to increase this afternoon when temperatures warm creating up canyon winds, pushing the fire north toward containment lines on the Rim. However due to firefighter’s work in this area, little movement is expected on the north. On the south side of the fire, expect to see backing and flanking fire progressing downhill in the Bonita drainage towards Highline Trail. However, when fire and winds align with drainages, expect to see rapid uphill runs. Eastward movement will continue.

 

A Highline Fire Community Meeting will be held today at 6:00 p.m. at the Starlight Pines Community Center in Blue Ridge, AZ. American Sign Language (ASL) services will be provided

 

No evacuation orders are in effect at this time. A Precautionary Pre-Evacuation Notification is in effect for residents in Bonita Creek community.  It is important for residents in these areas to be prepared as conditions can change rapidly.

 

Coconino and Tonto National Forests (NF) Closure Orders and Fire Restrictions on the Tonto NF remain in effect.

Firefighters are working to limit the fire’s spread and protect values at risk where they can do so safely and effectively. These values include watersheds, private inholdings and local communities, pipelines, range improvements, powerlines, air quality, federally listed and sensitive species, and nationally and regionally significant trail systems.

 

Wildfires are a No Drone Zone. If you fly, we can’t. Every time a drone is spotted near the fire all aircraft are grounded until we can be sure the drone is clear of this area. More info visit Know Before You Fly, http://knowbeforeyoufly.org

 

Fire Information: (928) 985-0097 (8:00 am to 8:00 pm)

InciWeb: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5233/ (Air Quality info, County Emergency Alert sign-up link, Firewise tips)

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/HighlineFireInfo/          

Twitter: https://twitter.com/highlinefire

Colorado's marijuana profits are going to schools and fighting opioid addiction

Jeff Sessions turns over in his aboveground grave

By Walter Einenkel  

Tuesday June 12, 2017

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Colorado’s experiment in legalizing recreational marijuana has been very successful in raising the state’s revenues. Last year they used some of their millions towards education scholarships amongst other things. This year, with more than $105 million in the state’s Marijuana Tax Cash Fund, Colorado will be spending that money on education, public health and their own industry’s oversight.

Colorado’s new budget devotes $15.3 million in weed tax revenue to pay for “permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing assistance for individuals with behavioral health needs, and for individuals experiencing or at-risk of homelessness.” Hickenlooper’s office said the money will help “reduce incarceration, hospitalization, and homelessness for many of Colorado’s most vulnerable citizens.” Another $7.1 million will go toward “ending the use of jails for holding people who are experiencing a mental health crisis” by increasing access to “more appropriate services outside the criminal justice system.”
The state’s Department of Education will also receive an additional $9.7 million in marijuana taxes to create a grant program that will pay for 150 health care workers to visit high schools and provide “education, universal screening, referral, and care coordination for students with substance abuse and other behavioral health needs.”

And according to the Denver ABC affiliate, money is being set aside for pilot programs that try to alleviate the opioid epidemic that has hit Colorado the same as it has hit the rest of the country.

The program will train nurse practitioners and physician assistants in Pueblo and Routt counties on how to prescribe medication and treatments for people in the midst of opioid addiction.
It will also send support to local agencies in both counties to provide behavioral health therapy, along with the medical treatment, to opioid addicts in the county.

This is a treatment program, not a punishment program. So while our new administration is interested in punishing people for marijuana, Colorado has moved well beyond into using marjiuana to help treat actual problems of drug addiction.

All of Washington Knows the Disaster Is Coming

Donald Trump. (photo: Getty Images)

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

11 June 17
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But no one looks equipped to stop it.

y credentialing request to the White House seemed to have blown off the cyber-porch, so, after a nice conversation with a polite young man carrying an automatic rifle on the sidewalk near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, I had to watch the president* greet Klaus Iohannis, the president of Romania, to the White House, after which the president* answered a few questions.

It had been a busy day by his standards. He woke early to tweet some slander at James Comey, virtually accusing the former FBI director of committing perjury before the Senate on Thursday. Then, there was an event to conclude Infrastructure Week, at which he announced the birth of that most dreadful of all Washington critters: the blue-ribbon commission of experts.

Or, at least, a hypothetical one. From WKOW:

Trump announced that the administration was creating a new council to help project managers navigate the bureaucratic maze, and to help improve transparency by creating an online system where projects can be tracked through every step of the approval process. He said federal agencies that consistently delay projects by missing deadlines will face new penalties. Trump also said a new office within the Council of Environmental Quality will root out inefficiencies, clarify lines of authority and streamline federal, state and local procedures to help communities modernize aging infrastructure. At a roundtable discussion with state transportation officials before the speech, Trump said aging U.S. systems were being "scoffed at and laughed" and he pledged that they "will once again be the envy of the world."

But it was at his press availability at the White House where he really shined. Just as the event was starting, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was across town deploring the blockade of Qatar that has been put in place by the various emirates and petro-states in the region, including the president*'s new best friends, the Saudis. From the Times:

Mr. Tillerson has spent days on the phone with officials from the region, some of whom he has known for many years. Mr. Tillerson was the chief executive of ExxonMobil, which has extensive operations in Qatar. Mr. Tillerson said he had known Mr. Al Thani for 15 years and also knows his son, the crown prince. "It's clear to me based on these comments that the elements of a solution are available," Mr. Tillerson said on Friday. He said the United States supported efforts by the emir of Kuwait, Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, to resolve the dispute. But he called on countries in the region to "immediately take steps to de-escalate the situation."

Whew. That was close. But then Tillerson's boss stepped up to the microphone.

"The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, historically, has been a funder of terrorism at a very high level and in the wake of that conference, came together and spoke to me about confronting Qatar over its behavior. So we had a decision to make—do we take the easy road or do we take the hard and necessary action?"

Do these guys ever talk to each other? I will grant you that Tillerson and Trump may be playing a game of Oil Cop/Dumb Cop in this situation, and we may find out that their eleventy-dimensional chess game was just what that volatile region needed, but my money is still on the notion that somebody in this equation isn't up to his job.

(He also finally committed himself to Article V of the NATO Treaty, which is an announcement that, for a normal president in a normal time, would be approximately as significant as a promise to abide by the the terms that ended the War of 1812. This is not a normal time, etc.)

Eventually, though, the questioning got around to about Comey's testimony on Thursday. He opened his remarks with a dead-on Tonto imitation.

"No collusion, no obstruction, he's a leaker."

He went on to wonder—glorioski!—wherever Comey could have come up with the notion that he'd asked for a kind of loyalty oath when they met in the White House. I mean, it's not like he's the king of the non-disclosure agreement or anything.

"I didn't say that, and there'd be nothing wrong if I did say it, according to everybody I've read today…I hardly know the man. I wouldn't say I want you to pledge allegiance under oath. Think about it. I hardly know the man. It doesn't make sense."

When he was asked about the possibility that he had taped his private conversations with Comey, he replied with the standard Trump Organization line with which hundreds of sub-contractors have become painfully familiar.

"I'll tell you something about that maybe sometime in the very near future…I'll tell you about it over a short period of time. I'm not hinting at anything."

"Sometime in the very near future" can be fairly translated in TrumpSpeak to "The check is in the mail," or, "My lawyers will fight you for every dime I owe you."

But, while he was calling Comey a liar, he dropped in a line after which you almost could hear White House staffers and the president*'s lawyers reacquainting themselves with Friday morning's breakfast. He was asked if he would be willing to testify, under oath, to special counsel Robert Mueller.

"100 percent… I would be glad to tell him exactly what I just told you."

And that, children, is how lead stories get ripped up and replaced.

I am not standing on my head waiting for him actually to testify, but he sure as hell knows how to grab a headline. Look, he doesn't know how to be president and he doesn't care to learn. The pivot is never coming. If he even half-pivots, he'll pivot right back in the other direction momentarily. He's there to be entertaining while the congressional Republicans keep their heads down and work toward rolling the federal government back to the Coolidge administration.

Washington these days is stuck in a kind of Cassandra Syndrome. Everybody knows the disaster is coming but nobody knows how to stop it, and too many people don't want to because they figure they can get rich selling off the ruins. But everybody knows the disaster is coming. People talk about it matter-of-factly, the way they talk about rain when the dark clouds gather over the monuments by the river. They also talk about it in whispers while every institution of democratic government screams for help. The government of the United States is in the hands of feckless time-servers and coat-holders at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and in the hands of an unpredictable and perilous clown show at the other. It is an altogether remarkable, if terrifying, place to be as summer comes on.

Jesus, won't somebody get the net?

Oh and, Trump's Lawyer Has Ties to Russia Too

Marc E. Kasowitz's clients include a Russian oligarch who is close to President Vladimir Putin and has done business with Trump's former campaign manager.(photo: Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast)

By Shawn Boburg, The Washington Post

10 June 17

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he hard-charging New York lawyer President Trump chose to represent him in the Russia investigation has prominent clients with ties to the Kremlin, a striking pick for a president trying to escape the persistent cloud that has trailed his administration.

Marc E. Kasowitz’s clients include Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is close to President Vladimir Putin and has done business with Trump’s former campaign manager. Kasowitz also represents Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank, U.S. court records show.

Kasowitz has represented one of Deripaska’s companies for years in a civil lawsuit in New York and was scheduled to argue on the company’s behalf May 25, two days after news broke that Trump had hired him, court records show. A different lawyer in Kasowitz’s firm showed up in court instead, avoiding a scenario that would have highlighted Kasowitz’s extensive work for high-profile Russian clients.

Kasowitz, whose scrappy style in the courtroom mirrors Trump’s approach to politics, represented Trump in various matters for more than a decade before he took on either Deripaska’s company or Sberbank, according to one of Kasowitz’s partners in the firm.

Trump has turned to Kasowitz for matters that include debt restructuring and suing an author who Trump said undercounted his net worth. On Thursday, Kasowitz became the public face of Trump’s counterattack on former FBI director James B. Comey, challenging the former federal prosecutor’s credibility and calling for Comey to be investigated for leaks after his testimony to Congress.

As Kasowitz takes on his most high-stakes work for Trump yet, the lawyer’s Russian clients could cause complications.

“If the behavior of a Russian client of the firm or its relationship with Trump becomes an issue in the investigation, a conflict could arise,” said Stephen Gillers of New York University Law School, an expert on legal ethics.

Deripaska has said congressional investigators have contacted his attorneys seeking information about his business dealings with Paul Manafort, a Trump campaign manager during the presidential campaign. More than a decade ago, Deripaska invested in a fund that Manafort set up in the Cayman Islands that bought assets primarily in Ukraine.

The Associated Press reported in March that Manafort “secretly worked for” Deripaska as far back as 2006 to influence politics and business dealings inside the United States to benefit Putin’s government. Manafort signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006 and maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, the AP reported.

Deripaska has denied the report, and he sued the AP for libel last month. Deripaska said he “never had any arrangement, whether contractual or otherwise, with Mr. Manafort to advance the interests of the Russian government,” according to the lawsuit. In newspaper ads taken out after the AP story, he said, “I want to resolutely deny this malicious assertion and lie.”

Former associates of Sberbank, the other Russia-tied Kasowitz client, also have come under scrutiny in media reports.

The bank’s former vice president, who is now chief executive of another Russian state-owned financial institution, Vnesheconombank, met with Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, in December.

Kushner’s interactions with the Russian banker are a part of the FBI’s investigation into potential coordination between Moscow and the Trump campaign team.

Gillers said Kasowitz’s firm should closely monitor potential conflicts. If one arises, the firm probably would have to drop one of its clients, he said.

A White House spokesman did not respond to requests for comment Friday. Michael J. Bowe, a partner at the law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres, declined to say whether the firm had discussed the possibility of potential conflicts arising from its Russian clients. Bowe added that their representation of the Russian firms and Trump “are totally unrelated.”

CNN and BuzzFeed previously reported Kasowitz’s Russian clients.

Trump hired Kasowitz in 2001 to restructure debt on his firm’s Atlantic City casinos. More recently, Kasowitz filed a lawsuit against Timothy O’Brien, arguing that the author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald” had libeled Trump by understating the businessman’s wealth. Trump lost the case in 2011. O’Brien told The Post last year that Trump used Kasowitz because he “always favored scrappy lawyers and street fighters.”

Kasowitz also wrote a letter during the presidential campaign threatening to sue the New York Times for an article that said two women had accused Trump of touching them inappropriately. Kasowitz said at the time it was “nothing more than a politically motivated effort to defeat Mr. Trump’s candidacy.” No suit has been filed.

On Tuesday, Deripaska’s company, Veleron, lost an appeal in federal court in Manhattan in its lawsuit against Morgan Stanley in a complex financial case involving a dispute over a loan on which Veleron defaulted during the height of the Great Recession. Kasowitz was scheduled to deliver oral arguments in the appeal last month. It’s not clear whether Kasowitz will continue to represent Veleron.

Records in the case reinforce Deripaska’s close ties to Putin. When Deripaska’s company ran into financial trouble in 2008 and needed to put up more collateral to cover some its liabilities, Deripaska put in a call to Putin, who authorized the state-run Vnesheconombank, or VEB, to offer his firm a bailout, Deripaska acknowledged in court records.

In 2008, Forbes magazine listed Deripaska as the ninth-richest man in the world. In 2006, the United States revoked his visa to enter the country, citing possible ties to organized crime. He has denied those links, claiming the allegations are part of an effort to smear him.

Kasowitz represents Sberbank in a 2016 lawsuit that is still in its preliminary stages. An owner of a Russian granite-mining business accuses the bank of conspiring with competitors to dismantle his company and seize its assets. The bank has not responded in court filings.

Sberbank was one of the sponsors of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow produced by Trump, who owned the competition. The deputy head of the bank at the time was Sergey Gorkov, who met with Kushner in December. Gorkov, a graduate of the academy of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the domestic successor of the former Soviet KGB intelligence bureau, was named to head VEB in February 2016.

VEB has maintained that Gorkov’s meeting with Kushner was part of a new business strategy and was conducted with Kushner in his role as the head of his family’s real estate business. The White House has said the meeting was unrelated to business and was one of many diplomatic encounters the soon-to-be presidential adviser was holding ahead of the inauguration.