Good piece in the Nation on the current state of Russiagate.

Appetizer:

These imperatives have incentivized a compromised set of journalistic and evidentiary standards. In Russiagate, unverified claims are reported with little to no skepticism. Comporting developments are cherry-picked and overhyped, while countervailing ones are minimized or ignored. Front-page headlines advertise explosive and incriminating developments, only to often be undermined by the article’s content, or retracted entirely. Qualified language—likely, suspected, apparent—appears next to “Russians” to account for the absence of concrete links. As a result, Russiagate has enlarged into a storm of innuendo that engulfs issues far beyond its original scope.

Betteridge's law: Any headline ending in a question mark can be answered by the word 'No'.

Update appreciated so I didn't have to look anything up.

" Murkowski and Collins are getting fewer headline inches out of it."

Can we move beyond this please?

Their votes were just not news on this day. Both of these senators were known no votes for weeks before this vote and got plenty of coverage for it.

Let this headline sink in for a second:
As opioid overdoses exact a higher price, communities ponder who should be saved

Just another instance of "Die faster, plebs!".

There's a reason we call it class warfare...

I do agree, but on the other hand sometimes these things go well beyond legitimate "questions about your actions / statements / plans".

Subject even the most patient person in the world to enough stupid / leading / clickbait-y questions, and eventually they'll get annoyed with it. Which is of course the entire point, so that they can clip that reaction out of context and run it with a headline like "Watch as Senator X flies off the handle after being asked a simple question!"

Some of these incidents are definitely sleazy politicians trying to weasel out of scrutiny to the greatest degree possible. But I'm sure that many of them are the political version of Marshawn Lynch just wanting to do his goddamn job without being constantly peppered with pointless questions from the media. And we all thought he was awesome for showing up to media days and saying only "I'm just here so I don't get fined", right?

Not trying to trivialize the political arena down to the level of a public spectacle like professional sports, but I think the comparison is at least a little valid.

I copied this from a transcript from CSpan, and wrote a lead in that matches this headline.

I found it pretty damning, too.

(I stopped at the strong statement of "these were lies.")

Reuters headline: Exclusive: Trump campaign had at least 18 undisclosed contacts with Russians: sources

... and then the content:
"The people who described the contacts to Reuters said they had seen no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion between the campaign and Russia in the communications reviewed so far."

"Those discussions focused on mending U.S.-Russian economic relations strained by sanctions imposed on Moscow, cooperating in fighting Islamic State in Syria and containing a more assertive China, the sources said."

Then there's the cover of Time.

I have no idea if the media's quest to defenestrate Trump will be successful, putting avowed theocrat Mike Pence on the throne, but this I believe: it will destroy the last bit of credibility the media had left. All the hyperventilation without ever putting up anything conclusive is suicide in slow-motion.

For eight months now, they've been running the hacking story, which went from hacking to influencing to meddling. Not once have they produced evidence, neither the media nor the intelligence agencies, yet they keep on insisting it's the real deal.

It's like the public domain kung fu + hilarious CGI and film splices of Kung Pao: Enter the Fist, meets the ridiculous headlining on magazines (at the very end of this clip) from the Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman movie Being John Malkovich.

#OrovilleSpillway for current tweets


Orville is under mandatory evacuation as they fear the emergency spillway may fail.
http://www.ktvu.com/weather/weather-news-headlines/235380255-story

Why the spillway may fail from California Dept. of water resources. https://www.periscope.tv/w/1yoKMeddkVeKQ

video
http://www.kcra.com/article/evacuation-orders-issued-for-low-levels-of-oroville/8735215

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/evacuations-underway-as-oroville-dam-prepares-for-failure-875775043662

I found one thing extremely interesting in *2* separate interviews with Assange when he was asked whether or not there was any Russian involvement -- including the one with Hannity shown early in the video here:

Hannity: Did Russia give you this information? Or anyone associated with Russia?
Assange: Our source is not a state party.

Very close to verbatim that exchange appeared in a print interview a week or two ago. The resulting headlines: "Assange denies Russian Involvement in the Leaks", etc.

But look at that answer. It is very carefully worded, but it doesn't directly answer the question. "Our source is not a state party" doesn't rule out that the source is Russian. It sort of rules out a source with known associations with the government (of Russia or anywhere else), but it could be an independent / private individual at face value that got the information from state parties.

I find it odd that nobody (as far as I've seen) has brought up that carefully worded answer, when it stuck out like a sore thumb to me the first time I saw it in print.


That being said, I 100% agree with Greenwald when he suggests that accusations are not proof. And the CIA and other agencies have a massive track record of shady dealings done in the name of "national security", as defined by whoever is in charge. Taking them at their word seems pretty hopelessly naive at this point.


But beyond all of that, I honestly don't care who did the hacking and what their motivations were. The government seems happy to record and analyze everything we say and do, and to claim that people like Edward Snowden are traitors for simply telling us about it. Well, get used to some of your own goddamn medicine. If you are running for public office, you should expect that your rights to privacy are going to be challenged much more strongly than those of Joe Average. You're a person of interest -- for pretty legitimate reasons.

Assume that absolutely everything you've ever said on the record (and lots OFF the record) is going to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. If you've got any skeletons in your closet, expect that there is a good chance they will get exposed. And probably at the worst possible time.

What should both parties take away from this? Gee, it might be a good idea to choose candidates that can stand up to at least a basic level of scrutiny. Backing slimy weasels that look great and charismatic after a quick once-over might come back to bite you in the ass.

I think Trump just found the headliner for his coronati ... er, inauguration *quality *terrible

LOL, how in the fuck does this show "Obama paid them to lie"? Also, he seems to be clearly aware that he is on air, doing punditry, looking at the camera while talking to her etc, I dont know when or where this is from, but from the headline it looks to be early in HRC's campaign, so its difficult to tell the context here, why he says what he says..

I don't know if this was more brutal than the usual roast. I saw the headlines back when it aired and finally got around to watching it here, but it didn't seem that much worse than usual. She had to expect people would insult her too, as her set included insults to others on the dais, so it shouldn't have come as a shock to her that she'd have insults her way too. Her set bombed for lack of comedic timing, comedy is hard (as Edmund Gwenn said, and later attributed to Jack Lemmon among others... http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/10/26/comedy-is-hard/ ).

A lot of the headlines made me cringe for sure, sadly the woman sounds like she is just about to fly out into some feminist rant. She needs to take some tips from Samantha Bee.