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Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

taibbi.substack.com

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Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#161

Post by overwhelm »

IOT_Apprentice wrote: post #136
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because to have collusion you need to have multiple parties colluding. They haven't indicted anymore Russians or any other members of the Trump campaign, and no existing indictment has been due to collusion. So even though the President can't be indicted, the indication that no other indictments means that collusion is not a part of the report. There may be other offenses that Trump have committed, but that is even M…

Collusion, like "Crooked Hillary" are terms Trump used courtesy of Cambridge Analytica to control the narrative. The investigation was to look for coordination and links between Russia and the Trump campaign, along with obstruction of justice as well as "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."

"Collusion" was so central to Russiagaters that the buffoonish Luke Harding even named his silly book that: https://www.amazon.com/Collusion-Secret-Meetings-Russia-Help.... (To see how buffoonish, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ikf1uZli4g.)

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#162

Post by overwhelm »

dTal wrote: post #153
overwhelm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The length of an article proves nothing about the truth of its contents.

The article is not the source of truth. The article is simply a collection of facts. A very large number of externally sourced and undisputed facts. Facts like "On December 29, 2016, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released an unclassified report[91] that gave new technical details regarding methods used by Russian intelligence services for affecting the U.S. election, government, political orga…

It's highly disputed. We just don't hear about that outside alternative sources. Taibbi alludes to this in the OP:

I didn’t really address the case that Russia hacked the DNC, content to stipulate it for now. I was told early on that this piece of the story seemed “solid,” but even that assertion has remained un-bolstered since then, still based on an “assessment” by the intelligence services that always had issues, including the use of things like RT’s “anti-American” coverage of fracking as part of its case. The government didn’t even examine the DNC’s server, the kind of detail that used to make reporters nervous.

Words like "wingnuttery" and "moon landing" weaken your case. If you get enough publications to print something, you can make a terrifically long list of citations, but what does that prove? Quality matters, not quantity, and the quality of journalism devoted to this case has been astonishingly low, as Taibbi shows. As he says:

We won’t know how much of any of this to take seriously until the press gets out of bed with the security services and looks at this whole series of events all over again with fresh eyes, as journalists, not political actors.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#163

Post by _cs2017_ »

CookieMon wrote: post #158
_cs2017_ wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Politics is so heavily polarized that 'I assume they will assume'. [...] Intersectional issues (race/gender/class), some things about China, obviously religion - they're all so loaded it's hard to have a discussion Agreed... That said, there are people who are happy to have an open discussion without judging everything on the basis of "friend" / "enemy". I wonder if there's a forum, online or offline, where ideas a…

> I wonder if there's a forum... There was one https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread... Various satellite forums of slatestarcodex have grown and are around, and only the original Culture War thread is gone. That whole group seems to be politically mixed and at least partially vaccinated against the dangers of framing political disagreements in terms of tribes and dehumanising the outgroup/oppo…

A very interesting read indeed.

In this case, it seems the original attempt didn't survive the influx of people from outside who were not interested in a civil discussion.

Perhaps a smaller, invitation only, forum might stand a better chance?

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#164

Post by akhilcacharya »

thatoneuser wrote: post #156
akhilcacharya wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way? It's absolutely true. It's not possible to reason away the criminality of the people Trump appointed or selected. I'm genuinely unsure of what would convince Matt Taibbi that Russiagate was a dud with so many indictments and such a consequential SCO investigation.

The point of mueller was to determine if Trump worked with Russia to steal a us presidential election. I may just not know the evidence so I'm asking in total honesty - what indictments demonstrate that happened?

> The point of mueller was to determine if Trump worked with Russia to steal a us presidential election.

This is false, the charter was more broad than that. It investigated interference in the Russian election including this possibility.

This is why they also prosecuted cases against Russian intelligence officers that performed the hacking operations and individuals that lied to the FBI over their ties to Russian cutouts in Wikileaks (specifically Stone and Corsi, though they gave up on Corsi).

Stone: https://www.apnews.com/1dcac576e9964f3d98b96b8052f61f8c

>After WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, released hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, the indictment says, a senior Trump campaign official “was directed” to contact Stone about additional releases and “what other damaging information” WikiLeaks had “regarding the Clinton campaign.” The indictment does not name the official or say who directed the outreach to Stone.

Russian Intelligence: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indic...

> coordinated to release damaging information to sway the election under the names “DCLeaks” and “Guccifer 2.0.”

Meanwhile I'm old enough to remember people saying Guccifer 2.0 was an "inside source". How the tables turn.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#165

Post by cm2187 »

int_19h wrote: post #20
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because to have collusion you need to have multiple parties colluding. They haven't indicted anymore Russians or any other members of the Trump campaign, and no existing indictment has been due to collusion. So even though the President can't be indicted, the indication that no other indictments means that collusion is not a part of the report. There may be other offenses that Trump have committed, but that is even M…

You can't indict anybody for collusion, since it's not a crime. What is a crime is, for example, conspiracy to hack DNC computers - for which several people, mostly Russians, were already indicted. Another example would be conspiracy to "impair, obstruct, or defeat the lawful function of any department of government", which is what the Internet Research Agency was indicted for.

"Mostly"? Are there any US national?

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#166

Post by cm2187 »

wildermuthn wrote: post #152

Everyone wants to have an opinion, and to publish said opinion, before they have any justification for an opinion. We’ve seen this over and over again, from both the left and the right, and yet it remains a blind-spot. Recall the MAGA kids who brutalized the peaceful Native American. Recall Trump directly ordering Cohen to lie to congress. Recall any story where in the rush to gain clicks, everyone jumped to ill-info…

Except that all the "mistakes" you mention, and I can think of a few others, are all against the same side of the political spectrum. If it was merely an apolitical click-baity reaction, it would be statistically impossible to end up with this level of political bias. I think it is good old fashion political propaganda, Pravda style.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#167

Post by read_if_gay_ »

abrahamepton wrote: post #98
areoform wrote: post #23

It is bizarre when an opinion piece on the death of the American news media, makes the same mistakes as the news media i.e. blending facts and opinion as one and treating editorials as news. For E.g. “There will be people protesting: the Mueller report doesn’t prove anything! What about the 37 indictments? The convictions? The Trump tower revelations? The lies! The meeting with Don, Jr.? The financial matters! There’…

It is very odd and telling that this is the comment that gets downvoted on this thread, while all the deep-state ravings get upvotes. What is happening to HN?

What deep-state ravings? I didn't come across a single upvoted top level comment fitting that description.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#168

Post by masonic »

arcticbull wrote: post #78
deogeo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...September 11th, 2001? How is that involved? Or did you mean something else?

America does propaganda better than probably any other country on earth, because it’s so interwoven into the fabric of society. Freedom of the press, of speech, of creators is espoused at every opportunity. And at the same time, the Pentagon is required to sign off on every movie script that shows any military buildings, or the White House. And they do make edits [1]. Military officials and commentators helped shape…

  the Pentagon is required to sign off on every movie script that shows any military buildings, or the White House
This is false, and the article you give as a source says nothing of the kind.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#169

Post by dragonwriter »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #12
montalbano wrote: post #10

Although I agree with many of the points here, unfortunately the piece itself has made the same mistake as the media it criticises: it's jumping to conclusions a little prematurely. Why read so much into the lack of indictments when Mueller's team have agreed to the standard that they cannot indict a sitting president? [1] Let's just wait and see -- I'm fed of speculation at this point. [1] https://www.washingtonpost…

Because to have collusion you need to have multiple parties colluding. They haven't indicted anymore Russians or any other members of the Trump campaign, and no existing indictment has been due to collusion. So even though the President can't be indicted, the indication that no other indictments means that collusion is not a part of the report. There may be other offenses that Trump have committed, but that is even M…

> and no existing indictment has been due to collusion.

The Pappadopolous indictment and conviction-by-guilty-plea was for (lying about) Trump-campaign initiated attempted collusion, in which Pappadopolous acted with the knowledge and approval of higher officials in the Trump campaign.

The Stone indictment is for (lying about) collusion with WikiLeaks on the release of information that, per other indictments, was being released as part of a Russian propaganda operation.

So, no, it's entirely false to say “no existing indictment has been due to collusion”.

> There may be other offenses that Trump have committed, but that is even MORE speculation.

That's not really speculation, either; it's not as if the identity of the unindicted coconspirator Individual 1 in the Cohen indictment out of SDNY is a mystery.

Re: Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media

#170

Post by [deleted] »

int_19h wrote: post #20
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because to have collusion you need to have multiple parties colluding. They haven't indicted anymore Russians or any other members of the Trump campaign, and no existing indictment has been due to collusion. So even though the President can't be indicted, the indication that no other indictments means that collusion is not a part of the report. There may be other offenses that Trump have committed, but that is even M…

You can't indict anybody for collusion, since it's not a crime. What is a crime is, for example, conspiracy to hack DNC computers - for which several people, mostly Russians, were already indicted. Another example would be conspiracy to "impair, obstruct, or defeat the lawful function of any department of government", which is what the Internet Research Agency was indicted for.

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