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

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

#201

Post by Fjolsvith »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #147
thatoneuser wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is propaganda. This is what this thread is about.

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.

Why has there been a big turnover of the Trump administration these last two years? Is it perhaps that because Trump was an outsider, he went along with people saying hire this guy who'd be good for the job, and then later fired him when it turned out that guy wasn't on the team?

Trump has been cleaning house, getting rid of the liberal plants whose job was to smear and discredit the new administration. Look at the list of purges:

https://abc7chicago.com/politics/bill-shine-and-other-notabl...

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

#202

Post by dragonwriter »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #196
dragonwriter wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those are processing crimes. Irrelevant, the actual facts charged in the indictment involve collusion. “Collusion” isn't a legal charge, it's a fact pattern, and it's part of the fact pattern in both the Stone and Pappadopolous indictments. The claim that there are no indictments involving collusion is false. > And Stone denies the accusation. Which is irrelevant to any claims about the content of indictments of fi…

> The claim that there are no indictments involving collusion is false. As there is no actual crime of collusion for which a person can be indicted, this is a subjective viewpoint.

It is a “subjective viewpoint” only in the trivial sense in which every description using human language (including terms whose uses include named legal offenses) relies on the subjectivity of interpretation of definitions in context, and in which there are no actual discussable concrete fact claims.

On any other level, “collusion” is a word with a clear meaning, and the Stone and Pappadopolous indictments (the latter of which is subject of a conviction with guilty plea and detailed statement of the offense confirming this) involve what is unambiguously actual collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks (on a matter which the facts alleged in other indictments identify WikiLeaks as advancing a Russian propaganda operation) and attempted (from the Trump campaign side) collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia directly.

Everything that denied this is lies and sophistry to support lies.

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

#203

Post by overwhelm »

int_19h wrote: post #109
lamarpye wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the people were convicted on charges related to Russian collusion. Many people convicted/plead guilty to process crimes, for example, lying to the FBI. I won't accuse of you of trying to mislead people, but the judge apologized for making the treason claim against Flynn: https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/judge-quickly-backtracks-apo...

That's because treason is an incredibly high bar to meet. Nevertheless, we now know that Flynn was acting as a propaganda agent of Turkey - by his own testimony, used to convict his co-conspirators - without registering as such. Do you consider this a "process crime"?

Of course not, but it's not what he was charged with and it has nothing to do with the Russiagate narrative. Presumably that's why he wasn't charged with that.

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

#204

Post by db48x »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #22
db48x wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's pretty clear that a lot of reporters have compromised their ethics, or never had any. The article quotes several; it is in fact the entire point of the article. Of course you might also say that the _owners_ of the media don't care about this lack of ethics as long as they're making money. That's probably true, but it's not the same thing at all. The blame goes to the people who have no ethical standards, or…

How is covering one of the biggest scandals in modern American politics malpractice? Obama never had anything similar in scope over 8 years.

That's not what I was referring to. The article quotes journalists who thought about speaking up about something, but decided not to because it might help Trump. It sounds like they had a sense of ethics, but compromised that ethics because of politics. Or the journalists who spent weeks in Prague and failed to find any evidence there, and then failed to report on that failure. There's no evidence that this person ever had any ethical standards because they then joked about it while trying to sell their book. Perhaps this is less likely to be regarded as an ethical failure by journalists; even scientists are only recently pushing for pre-registration of medical trials in order to prevent unfavorable studies from being swept under the rug.

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

#205

Post by Fjolsvith »

dragonwriter wrote: post #202
Fjolsvith wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The claim that there are no indictments involving collusion is false. As there is no actual crime of collusion for which a person can be indicted, this is a subjective viewpoint.

It is a “subjective viewpoint” only in the trivial sense in which every description using human language ( including terms whose uses include named legal offenses) relies on the subjectivity of interpretation of definitions in context, and in which there are no actual discussable concrete fact claims. On any other level, “collusion” is a word with a clear meaning, and the Stone and Pappadopolous indictments (the latt…

> Everything that denied this is lies and sophistry to support lies.

It seems to me that the lack of further Mueller indictments denies it. But, we could argue it either way, and that is what makes it subjective.

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

#206

Post by Overtonwindow »

Just my opinion: I worked on Capitol Hill during the mid-2000's. As I got to know a lot of the older policy wonks, lobbyists, and former members, I found in ways both small and loud, they decried today's political atmosphere. Many trace it back to the Clinton's and Newt Gingrich.

The opinion, which I agree with, starts with the Clinton's response to the Republicans, and vice versa. It became personal, particularly after things got heated with Clinton's legal troubles.

Then comes Rep. Tom Delay, a.k.a. "The Hammer" who took it one step higher. When the Republicans took over, he worked to ram legislation through. Now everyone is looking at their cross-the-ailse counterparts and saying "I hate you. I want you to lose."

The business of governing broke down, and only exacerbated with Bush, Obama, Pelosi, etc. They are no longer working together, they are at war.

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

#207

Post by lamarpye »

abrahamepton wrote: post #100
lamarpye wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worse than Watergate. The FBI spied on a Presidential campaign using evidence supplied and paid for by the another candidate. If the names were changed, Hacker News people would be outraged. They would be mad at the FISA court, mad at the FBI, mad at the media. Look in the mirror and decide, do you have consistent principles or do they own apply in certain situations.

Multiple senior members of a Presidential campaign have either pled guilty or been convicted of serious felonies, and you think the ones to blame are the FBI? I mean I think the FBI has a lot to answer for, here and on plenty of other issues, but... I don't know how to tell you this, because you won't believe it, but if you're sincere and not a troll then you have a very unhealthy media diet. Your take here is very d…

How is my take looking today?

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

#208

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #189
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who disagree with you aren't always trolls or bots. There are people out there with differing views. Red states have internet too. And not like it justifies the Russians, but MediaMatters bots Reddit for the DNC. I don't think HackerNews is a big enough target for anyone tbh.

> People who disagree with you aren't always trolls or bots > There are people out there with differing views Strawmen. > And not like it justifies the Russians, but MediaMatters bots Reddit for the DNC Citation? What's your point, anyway? This is just what-aboutism that has nothing to do with the question at-hand. Obviously. > I don't think HackerNews is a big enough target for anyone tbh The HN community is sizeabl…

Lol, you just yelled strawmen over and over and called my comment propaganda without furthering your point at all.

You're the one who speculated there are bots here. Just because there are comments without replies and downvotes. Unless you're psychic or you know Putin you don't have any proof of that, so it's wild speculation. My point was those are more than likely real people with differing views. That's way more likely than some bot being farmed on a random topic on HN.

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

#209

Post by SEJeff »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #194
SEJeff wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet there could be sealed indictments that have yet to be unsealed. In fact, every single one of Mueller's indictments were originally sealed. Who's to say there aren't others that he's handed off to various federal prosecutors like at SDNY or EVDA? Assuming that Mueller has entirely cleared the president (or anyone around him) at this point is about as pointless as proving he's about to be arrested in the Oval Offic…

> as pointless as proving he's about to be arrested in the Oval Office. A sitting president cannot be arrested by his administration, by law.

A sitting president can not be indicted by the DoJ, per DoJ policy. There is no law whatsoever, but only a memo that makes a policy from the DoJ's OLC (Office Of Legal Opinion). If you think this is a law, you are mistaken.

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

#210

Post by dang »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #128

[flagged]

You've broken more than one of the site guidelines in this thread, particularly the ones that ask you not to insinuate astroturfing and not to go further into flamewar. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and abstain from doing these things here, hard though that can be.

The internet reflex where people assume that only trolls, bots, or shills can explain something they dislike online, is off topic here. It has also become so self-parodically common that one can only hope it will jump the shark soon.

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