Feb 4, 2018
8

“Nunesburgers” & denial from the MSM while Politico blames Putin

the completely spontaneous (no, honestly) “nunesburger” designed to make you think there’s nothing to it


The “Nunes” Memo isn’t political dynamite but it could be the final blow to the whole ridiculous and virtually fact-free Russiagate narrative. It confirms the Steele dossier is a scam, and demonstrates the lies employed to get approval for spying on Trump’s team, it shows the vindictive bias in the establishment towards an elected official.
But, of course, the mainstream media and various paid opinion-makers are not admitting that. In fact there’s a chorus of evasion and distraction and frantic meme-creation right now, from bots spamming talking points, and “#nunesburger” hashtags to avowedly serious opinion pieces claiming it’s all a “half-baked conspiracy theory”…blah…blah…
There’s no shortage of examples of just how eerily lockstep the various strands of the campaign are, but here’s one of the “serious” ones to mull over. Politico’s The Nunes Memo & Putin’s Long Game.
Here’s the text with our annotations:

Ever since the U.S. intelligence community discovered the Russian operation to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and aid President Donald Trump’s victory, some Republicans have been laboring to undermine investigations into the attack and discredit the intelligence agencies that discovered it.

It’s almost touching how, right from the off, they bravely opt to simply ignore the fact that the Russia hack narrative is now probably doomed. Like a first class passenger on the Titanic, deeply in denial, they are sitting, hat slightly askew, sipping tea and admiring the view while the deck beneath them tilts and slides. Don’t think about the facts, Politico readers, think about the mean people who wanted you to know the facts!

Those efforts reached a new crescendo (sic) on Friday, when House Republicans released a partisan memo alleging anti-Trump bias at the FBI with approval from Trump, who declared on Twitter that both the FBI and Department of Justice are corrupt.

Well, first can someone tell them what “crescendo” means? Secondly, isn’t it interesting how the Memo only “alleges” anti-Trump bias, even though it contains and refers to clear proof of same. Contrast with the above claim of certitude about “Russian interference” in the face of no proof whatsoever.

But that turmoil, some were quick to point out, is exactly what Putin wanted all along.

In the nick of time the Titanic passengers have managed to grab something to keep them afloat. A lifebuoy with “Putin” written on it in scary red letters. Reality averted.

“The latest attacks on the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests – no party’s, no president’s, only Putin’s,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in a statement Friday. “Our nation’s elected officials, including the president, must stop looking at this investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan sideshows. If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him.”

Someone could tell McCain that the rule of law is undermined by people breaking the law and getting away with it – not by revealing the fact to the public. But they probably wouldn’t dare.

For more than a year, Trump has consistently cast doubt on the assessments of intelligence agencies he now leads, arguing that “the deep state” is stacked against him.

The Memo (which Politico hasn’t yet quoted or linked to) proves Trump was right. But let’s not waste time on details like that.

Facing an investigation that reached into his own administration, and potentially into the Oval Office, the president chose to fire his FBI director, James Comey last May, and since then has repeatedly hinted that he might try to do the same to others.
That may include deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who oversees special Russia counsel Robert Mueller. “You figure that one out,” Trump said when asked Friday if he still had confidence in Rosenstein after reading the memo.
The cumulative effect of it all, intelligence veterans said, was to diminish trust in government institutions—thereby weakening the U.S.

To sum up their point here if we may – it’s not the fact US officials have been caught lying and manipulating and conspiring against elected representatives that diminishes trust in government institutions – it’s the fact people insist on talking about it

“We have to remember what Putin’s goal in this whole endeavor was,” said Ned Price, a former CIA officer and NSC spokesperson under President Barack Obama. “It was at its core to divide the American people and pit us against each other.”
“This is exactly what he had hoped and it has succeeded beyond his wildest expectations,” he said of the memo. “This memo just play right into that… This is exactly what Putin had in mind.”

In some ways this is the most ridiculous thing in the article. Why would any sane person – Putin or anyone else – want America to be more divided, unstable and terrifying than it already is? To the rest of the world, even its supposed friends, America is the psycho next door with the drinking problem, the chainsaw and the cupboard full of illegal firearms. No one wants this guy getting all riled up about anything. Because they don’t want to wake up with their house on fire and their kids dead in the yard.

The memo “is simply an attempt to cast aspersions on the whole investigation,” said Robert Litt, a former general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who now works for Morrison and Foerster.

This is rather like saying proving someone guilty of child abuse is an “attempt to cast aspersions” on their parenting. And they still haven’t mentioned or quoted the contents of the Memo.

“To the extent that Putin’s goal is to weaken us an emphasize our internal division, which was certainly one of the conclusions that the intelligence community reached, yes absolutely [he succeeded],” Litt added. “This is increasing partisanship and division and making it more difficult to bring to light what they’re actually doing. … I would’ve thought that there would have been a considerably greater level of bipartisan concern about what the Russians have done.”

Hey – you know another way they could have thwarted that damn Putin? Their intelligence agencies could have not lied and cheated and plotted in the first place.

But for Trump, House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes and other Republicans, Friday was a day of triumph.
“The Committee has discovered serious violations of the public trust, and the American people have a right to know when officials in crucial institutions are abusing their authority for political purposes,” Nunes wrote on Friday, accompanying the release of the memo his staff drafted.
“I think it’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country,” Trump declared.

Politico focuses on what Nunes said as if the only thing that mattered was the fact he was triumphing over the Dems. They completely avoid even considering the fact the words happen also to be true. Truth is a thing. It happens. It can be measured. Remember when that used to matter? Oh but wait – Politico is about to discuss the contents of the Memo!…

The memo, however, showed little that was new. A dossier compiled by a former British intelligence operative, who was funded in part by Clinton’s campaign, was part of the basis for the investigation, the memo says. But that was already known. And other elements of the investigation were underway independent of the dossier, the memo acknowledged.

…No, false alarm. It looked momentarily as if they were going to discuss the contents of the Memo, but it turns out they don’t need to, because there’s nothing new in it! Nope. Nowt here you haven’t seen before. Move along.
But wait – if the Memo doesn’t matter why did so many people not want it published? Why is it “dividing” anyone? If the Memo doesn’t matter then why is it just what Putin wants?
And if the Memo doesn’t matter and contains nothing new why won’t Politico quote a single line of it? Or even link to it?
And they don’t. Not once in the entire piece. What Politico is saying, with pure Doublethink, is the Memo is completely worthless, useless, empty and boring and a fiendish, cunning plot by Vladimir Putin to divide America and undermine public faith in its institutions. And most of the people who read it will believe these two things with ease. Because being an American Liberal these days requires complete removal of your sense of the ridiculous.
This last bit is interesting though:

Nonetheless, conservative media — including some outlets which were handed the memo before it became public — rejoiced.
Former House Speaker and Trump confidant Newt Gingrich suggested that the memo would ultimately undermine Mueller’s investigation.
“This memo will lead to more releases of more material and it will go on and on,” Gingrich told POLITICO. “We will be shocked at how deep the sickness was. … Why would you think Mueller is anything different? He’s just part of the same mess.”

Are we going to see a Memo war of attrition? Will this signal an avalanche of mutually destructive dirt from all sides? This could be a time for popcorn and a comfy chair.

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Categories: Catte, latest, Media Criticism