As far as Nunes can tell, none of us have even met with Trump

[PerkingFaintly]

Devin Nunes Gets A Pretty Basic Fact Wrong In Defending His Memo
Nunes suggested that Donald Trump had never met with George Papadopoulos. There's a photo of them sitting at the same table.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/devin-nunes-memo_us_5a788b57e4b01fe513a60603


And we certainly didn't have a national security meeting right here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3150505-The-one-in-which-Trump-orders-his-staff-to-fire-Mueller-and-they-give-him-the-finger?pg=1

[PerkingFaintly]

I still don't know who ginghambox means by "he", or what he might be right about. If I did, I might be able to give a meaningful answer.

Meanwhile I'll have to keep guessing.

Maybe she means Flynn is right when he says he lied to the FBI. He's pleaded guilty to it, so it seems likely.

Or maybe she means Trump is right when he said he'd fired Flynn because of those lies. Which would mean Trump knew Flynn was lying to the FBI when he asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn.

So many possibilities.

[PerkingFaintly]

Or maybe she means Trump was right when he said he had a bigger inauguration crowd than Obama?

[TheClaws]

ginghambox has popped up on our threads before to shoot out some occasional wisdom. It seems she/he is a regular on Brexit threads with more extreme RW views, with language to suit. I wouldn’t bother. ginghambox, if you support Trump, that’s for you to sort out in your own time.

[Saffronwblue]

Thread is off to a great start already.

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

Thanks for the thread!

Love the idea of MiniNatsku being called Fred


Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1
Lawyers for Trump have advised him against sitting down for a wide-ranging interview with Mueller, four people briefed on the matter tell NYT.

His lawyers are concerned that Trump could be charged with lying to investigators.

<a class="break-all" href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/us/politics/trump-lawyers-special-counsel-interview.html?referer=t.co/BuMbXRLfA8?amp=1#click=t.co/BuMbXRLfA8" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/us/politics/trump-lawyers-special-counsel-interview.html?referer=t.co/BuMbXRLfA8?amp=1#click=t.co/BuMbXRLfA8

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

Manu Raju
@mkraju
Escalating a standoff with House Intel, Bannon expected to skip scheduled appearance before panel Tuesday, risking being held in contempt. Story TK with @KaraScannell

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

Devin Nunes's Next Target

The House Intelligence Committee chair has turned his sights to the State Department, as he presses forward with his probe into intelligence gathering related to Russian electoral interference in 2016.

www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/552389/?__twitter_impression=true

Devin Nunes has a new target: Jonathan Winer, the Obama State Department’s special envoy to Libya, and longtime Senate aide to John Kerry. Winer received a memorandum from political activist Cody Shearer and passed it along to Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence official who had compiled his own dossier on Donald Trump.

The release of last week’s House Intelligence Committee memo accusing the FBI of surveillance abuses marked the end of the first phase of Nunes’s investigation into the probe of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. Now, the committee chair told Fox News on Friday, the probe is moving into “phase two,” which involves the State Department. His focus is on the dossier compiled by Shearer, and passed along by Winer, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

Reporter says he was threatened with ban from press calls after declining to alter story: report

thehill.com/homenews/media/372296-reporter-threatened-with-ban-from-press-calls-after-declining-to-alter-story?amp&__twitter_impression=true

[cozietoesie]

Nunes is trying to keep the flames of celebrity burning............

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

Ryan J. Reilly 🦅
Ryan J. Reilly 🦅
@ryanjreilly
NEW: 74 percent — SEVENTY FOUR PERCENT — of Trump voters now think that the FBI is biased against Trump.

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a78e023e4b018ad894f0691?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

64 percent — SIXTY FOUR PERCENT — of Trump voters now have little or no trust in the nation’s premier law enforcement agency

“Of those Trump voters who’ve heard about the memo, 79 percent think it shows that the FBI did something wrong, and more than 80 percent describe the memo’s contents as accurate.”

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

Flames of obstruction/distraction I think

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

Mexican-American judge that Trump attacked could hear case on border wall

thehill.com/homenews/administration/372436-mexican-american-judge-that-trump-attacked-could-hear-case-on-border?amp&__twitter_impression=true

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

David Roberts
@drvox

1. With the Nunes memo, the GOP deliberately used journalists as tools to confuse & mislead the public. Cons have been doing that again & again & again for my entire adult life. They lie. Journos he-said she-said the lies. Long after it matters, the truth dribbles out.
   

1. It's been going on for so long - the same cycle of lie-controversy-correction - that we've become numb to it. It's just a thing that happens in US politics, its rhythms & beats as predictable as a network sitcom. Even this very critique has become a tiresome part of the cycle.
   

1. Arguably journalism is doing a little better in the Trump Era -- at least the cycle is getting shorter. But corrections still rarely matter. Cons take the appearance of the controversy in the MSM as a sign that their side is legitimate. It's all they need to make it gospel.
   

1. Basically, a controversy ("GOP claims X, but Dems say Y") signals for partisans to dig in their heels & for casual news consumers (the vast majority) to dismiss it as yet more unpleasant, unproductive squabbling. The merits are almost beside the point.
   

1. But it's crucial to remember that this outcome is not neutral. It is to the liar's advantage. The lie has become a legitimate side in a controversy, moved from the realm of "false" to the realm of "contested." Partisans are further polarized; normals are further alienated.
   

1. Also crucial to remember: given the power of RW media to amplify + the norms/conventions/habits of mainstream journalism, there is essentially no check on this phenomenon. There is no way to stop it, no limit to it. Lies work!
   

1. Basically, the MSM has been hacked and the only way out is to change the source code. It's got to figure out new norms/conventions/habits that can thwart the hackers, or at least battle them back a bit. But what would such changes look like?
   

1. I don't have any more than fragments of an answer, but here's a thought: in normal life, when someone lies to our faces again & again, we eventually come to mistrust that person. We no longer take what they say in good faith; we assume it false absent outside confirmation.
   

1. MSM conventions seem to prohibit this. "Objectivity" apparently requires assuming good faith -- a presumption that everyone in politics is at least attempting to make truth claims, that their statements are meant to reflect (not merely manipulate) reality.
   

10. That assumption of good faith seems to me the hinge on which all this turns -- it is the heuristic that RWers most ruthlessly exploit. They know that no matter what they say, MSM has to at least formally treat it seriously enough to print it (alongside what "critics say").

11. At this point, however, someone like Nunes (or Conway, Miller, Sanders, Trump) ought to have sacrificed that presumption of good faith. They are liars, they lie frequently & on purpose, so MSM should start treating them accordingly.

12. When a serial liar tells you, "have I got a story for you!" you don't write a story premised on good faith. You write, in so many words, "serial liar makes unsupported claims that are probably bullshit." That is anathema to objective media ... despite being objectively true.

13. Of course the RW would cry "bias!" That's part of the game, one way they've kept this racket going so long. But taking note of reality & changing your behavior accordingly is not bias. Pretending not to know something true for the sake of appearances is not objectivity.

14. Trump, li'l Jr., probably Nunes himself, they think the memo "worked," simply b/c it gave RW partisans permission to dismiss the Russia investigation. They don't give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuck if it's true. That's not a relevant category for them!

15. They are pure tribalists, like 98% of the right. There is only the partisan war. "Saying things to media" is only a weapon in that war; truth is irrelevant. If MSM wants to make truth relevant, it's got to change the habits that make it such an effective weapon for liars.

16. Anyway, my plane's about to land so I should quit rambling. Just FYI, @brianbeutler has been writing about all this, consistently & powerfully, for a long while. For example, read this:

crooked.com/article/trump-nunes-memo-obstruction/

17. I don't think anybody really knows how to fix the MSM or even what it is anymore, or who qualifies but everyone who cares about journalism should be thinking about this. There will be another Nunes memo, or similar. And another. And another.

18. Like I said in the ol' Tribal Epistemology piece, truth doesn't speak for itself; it doesn't matter on its own. Somebody, some institution, has to make it matter. That's the challenge for all journos: not just to tell the truth, but to make the truth matter.

[OuaisMaisBon]

Thank you for the new thread, Perking.
Came here to post about the 74%; that checked cloth container poster must be one of them.
Treason, eh?
Rep. don Beyer
.@realDonaldTrump doesn't know what "treason" means. He should study Article III of the United States Constitution, which he clearly hasn't read.

The Founders were concerned that a despot might abuse their powers of office to attack political enemies. Smart people, the Founders.

Rogue CPI

Nothing says “I’m not a dictator” like accusing those who don’t clap for you of treason.

[OuaisMaisBon]

Pain - #11 and #12 of David Roberts's list above should be writ large on hoardings all over the internet/US equivalent of Fleet Street.

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

Sadly the bbc could also take heed of the advice when it comes to Brexit

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

Sneaky Karen Schwartz
@pithywidow
George Papadopoulos's fiancee Simona is retweeting @SethAbramson 's thread about him 🧐

[OuaisMaisBon]

I saw that, too, Pain. Not exactly sure what it means for Trump and Nunes, though, as 74% of #45's supporters will believe that photo of Papadopoulos in the same room as Trump is a fake anyway.

[TheClaws]

Here’s a tweet Trump sent about the stock market in 2015. I’m hoping he’ll take his own advice.

[TheClaws]

at ‘“Dow Joans’”and “‘loaded’ into a very big cannon and Shot into the sun”

The mental images are most amusing.

[OuaisMaisBon]

As IF, TheClaws. That'll be fake news, I think you'll find. Obviously some other Donald Trump tweeting under #45's name in 2015 - clearly doesn't count because Obama and HC's email servers.

[blueskyinmarch]

I have been waiting patiently to see who he is going to blame for the drop in the Dow but his Twitter feed has remained strangely silent!

[TheClaws]

Tucker has said it on behalf of the state news channel. Expect more blatant statements like this - targeting not just the FBI but other agencies - in the near future.

Fox News @FoxNews
3h3 hours ago
More
.@TuckerCarlson: "For the first time in generations Americans have reason to believe that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies gravely misuse the powers we have given them." #Tucker fxn.ws/2E756as

[TheClaws]

I think he’ll claim the drop in the “Dow Joans” is due to a butterfly farting in some shithole country in that place on the other side of the world that starts with the letter A. Also because Obama left a MESS, people, but don’t worry about it. Trump won’t take care of it.