As I’ve stated before, America is not “divided” the GOP has lost their damn minds. As we move forward it becomes more and more obvious that former Russia chess champion Gary Kasparov has the GOP is living in an “alternate universe” just like the post-truth Soviet Union.
Now 56, Kasparov points out that in the Soviet Union, “reality” was “whatever” the Soviet Communist Party “put out on the nightly news.” Kasparov notes that the Soviet Union’s official government newspapers were Pravda and Izvestia; in Russian, “pravda” is the word for “truth,” while “izvestia” means “news.” And Kasparov recalls that in the Soviet Union, a common joke was that “there is no news in the truth and no truth in the news.”
“I’m a post-Soviet citizen,” Kasparov explains. “The country of my birth ceased to exist in 1991. We enjoyed less than a decade of tenuous freedom in Russia before Vladimir Putin launched its post-democratic phase. My ongoing attempts to fight that tragedy led to my exile in the United States. Now, my new home finds itself locked in its own perilous battle: a battle to avoid becoming the latest member of the post-truth world.”
[,,,]
“Unable to change the facts, Trump and his supporters instead try to shift the debate into an alternate universe where the truth is whatever they say it is today,” Kasparov observes. “Trump repeats the same lies over and over, and it’s hard to say which is more troubling: that his followers don’t realize that they are lies or that they don’t care. Globalization and the internet may have made the world smaller, but now, we’re experiencing a counterattack: the regionalization of truth.”
[...]
“If you watched the impeachment hearings only on Fox News, you would have thought things were going great for the president,” Kasparov notes. “Any phrase that might sound like it exonerated him — and there weren’t many — was repeated over and over like a mantra. The copious and damning evidence provided may as well not have existed.”
With greater media choices available via the internet, people are free to cherry-pick the outlets that they subscribe to. But among those choices are malign actors pushing a particular narrative agenda in support of the GOP and Trump regardless of the facts. Some of us are choosing news that is designed to mislead us, to deceive us, and some of us like it that way.
This has been the case for decades with right-wing radio and TV. A survey conducted in 2012 found that Fox News viewers were less informed than those who watched no news at all.
Researchers asked 1,185 random nationwide respondents what news sources they had consumed in the past week and then asked them questions about events in the U.S. and abroad.
On average, people correctly answered 1.6 of 5 questions about domestic affairs.
Because the aim of the study was to isolate the effects of each type of news source, they then controlled for variables such as other news sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors.
They found that someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer 1.04 domestic questions correctly compared to 1.22 for those who watched no news at all. Those watching only "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" answered 1.42 questions correctly and people who only listened to NPR or only watched Sunday morning political talk shows answered 1.51 questions correctly.
More recent examples of this are that nearly half of Fox News viewers believe that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
Fully 44% of Americans who traffic in the Fox fever swamp of conspiracy theories believe that Ukraine meddled. That same cohort of Fox viewers is also much less likely to believe that Russia interfered in 2016, despite the fact that the U.S. intelligence community, the two-year special counsel investigation, and the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee all concluded that Russia launched a coordinated, top-down attack on the U.S. electoral system in the last presidential cycle.
This is despite the fact that the Senate Intelligence Report just recently confirmed that Russia was the source of the 2016 meddling.
Washington — A report released Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee warns that the Kremlin-backed information warfare efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election could evolve, intensify and inspire other actors to make similar attempts in 2020.
The partially redacted, 85-page report is the product of two years of bipartisan, staff-led efforts, and offers a comprehensive look at Russian operatives' activity surrounding the 2016 elections.
Though President Trump continues to dismiss the idea that Russia tried to help his candidacy with its meddling, the panel's report reinforces previous conclusions by the intelligence community about Russian operations in 2016 — including that they were designed to harm Hillary Clinton's chances of success while boosting Mr. Trump's.
Further, there is another Senate Intelligence report, which is currently classified, which looked specifically at the rumors of Ukraine being involved in 2016 and proves that this is a hoax.
The Senate Intelligence Committee found no evidence in 2017 that Ukraine orchestrated a systematic effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, Politico reported Monday, citing people with direct knowledge of the investigation.
In the wake of Russia's election meddling, the GOP-led Intelligence Committee reportedly looked into the theory, recently resurfaced by allies of President Trump, that Kyiv also sought to influence the 2016 vote. But the panel halted the probe in the fall of 2017 after an interview with Alexandra Chalupa, a Democratic consultant linked to the Ukraine meddling allegations, bore no significant information, Politico reported.
[...]
The interview with Chalupa had mainly focused on a Politico report from January 2017. In that article, Chalupa has said that the Ukrainian Embassy was "helpful" with her pursuit to expose information about former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. She told the news outlet that she traded information with officials there and that "if I asked a question, they would provide guidance."
But she noted that the officials had been "very careful" to not get involved politically in U.S. affairs. The initial Politico article also highlighted that there was little evidence Ukraine had orchestrated a systematic effort to interfere in the election similar to the one perpetrated by the Kremlin.
Chalupa reportedly denied serving as an intermediary between the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Ukrainian Embassy during her testimony. She also alleged that a Russian active-measure campaign had targeted her.
This means the claims made by Trump and his supporters that they need to investigate Ukraine for 2016 interference are completely bogus. That investigation has already occurred and has come up with bupkis. This is not a serious argument.
That's why former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent was literally laughing at Rick Santorum as he continued to try and whip this dead horse.
You also had the testimony by Jonathan Turley which claimed that Trump has committed no crimes — yet. That has been ripped to shreds by Conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin.
Turley, wrote Rubin, “did not make an impressive case against impeachment. He blatantly contradicted his position pre-President Trump that a criminal violation was not required for impeachment. Moreover, his main argument, namely that the House was moving too fast, leaves open the question as to whether in a few weeks or a month he might support impeachment.” Moreover, “Turley made some arguments that frankly do leave one wondering why Republicans thought he would be valuable.”
“For example, Turley acknowledged, ‘[Trump’s] call was anything but ‘perfect’ and his reference to the Bidens was highly inappropriate,'” wrote Rubin. “It was highly ‘inappropriate’ because we do not invite foreign governments to investigate political rivals. The ‘ask’ was in and of itself a serious and impeachable act, especially given Trump’s own statements that he will continue to invite foreign meddling.”
“Turley also confessed, ‘The use of military aid for a quid pro quo to investigate one’s political opponent, if proven, can be an impeachable offense,'” wrote Rubin. “And we would assume that conditioning a White House meeting desperately needed by an ally could also be an impeachable act. Well, we had multiple witnesses including Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testify to precisely that. Experienced prosecutors, I am quite certain, could get a conviction under the criminal standard, beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Despite all this, Fox, Newsmax, Breitbart and others will continue to contort and propagandize the facts and the news, working to convince their loyal viewers that up is down, black is white, and that trickle of piss splashing on your head from the overlords upstairs is nothing more than rain.
Everything they’re being told is a pack of lies, misdirection, gaslighting and Russian talking points.
Russia’s cyberwar in Ukraine includes the use of the news media and social networking websites to disseminate fake news as well as cyberattacks on governmental agencies and Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. In Ukraine, such Russian actions exploit existing social divisions and public distrust in the government’s ability to provide protection. As a result, this continuous destabilization effort has helped to justify the separatist narrative in Eastern Ukraine; it also contributed to the loss of Crimea.[4]
Disinformation is a powerful tool in the hands of adversaries. For instance, the spread of propaganda and the manipulation of facts were one of the primary aids that helped Russia to annex the Crimean Peninsula on March 17, 2014.[5] While the occupation was accomplished with physical military forces – the invasion began “in the minds” of the Crimeans.[6] The invasion of Ukraine’s territory and annexation of Crimea was proceeded by a propaganda campaign by Russian state media, such as Russia 24, NTV, Channel One (ORT), and Russia-1 — all widely popular on the peninsula at the time.[7] While many Ukrainians protested corruption and anti-western oppressive policies of the regime in Kyiv, a very different narrative was broadcasted to Crimeans about those events.[8] Such narratives led people in Crimea to believe their lives and freedoms were in danger from their fellow citizens in Kyiv.[9] As the result, when the Russian military came offering protection, many gladly accepted, justifying it with the ethnic belonging to Russian culture.[10]
Disinformation is the currency of Russia, and the Republican party is lapping it up and openly reframing it directly to their waiting stooges on Fox.
I’ve advocated for their lies to be directly attacked with lawsuits, similar to the SLAPP suits only with merit. Since I said that Devin Nunes has sued CNN for $435 Million because they reported that Lev Parnas lawyers claim that he and Nunes met each other in Vienna. Newsweek says that Nunes spent $57,000 on the trip.
Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican member on the House Intelligence Committee, spent nearly $57,000 on a trip to Europe for him and his staff to allegedly investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, records show.
The figures seem to confirm allegations made by Lev Parnas—a Ukrainian-born American who worked as a "fixer" for Rudy Giuliani before being indicted on criminal charges—who said that he helped Nunes arrange meetings with various Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on Biden.
And yet he claims this didn't happen. Meanwhile, Karen McDougal has sued Fox News because Tucker Carlson said that she had been paid “extortion money” by Trump.
Amid revelations in 2018 that ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen had made hush payments to McDougal and former adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their alleged affairs with Trump, Carlson claimed the dealings were “extortion payments” and accused the two women of threatening to “ruin [Trump’s] career and humiliate his family if he doesn’t give them money.”
“Now that sounds like a classic case of extortion,” the Fox host said, as cited in the court filing.
Carlson had made the comments after Cohen admitted in his guilty plea to carrying out the hush payments to protect Trump shortly before the 2016 election in violation of campaign finance laws. He told the court that he had done so “in coordination and at the direction of” Trump “for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election.”
Eric Bernstein, McDougal’s attorney, pointed to Cohen’s criminal case as evidence in the former model’s defamation suit on Thursday.
This didn't just happen. People are making choices as to who and what they want to listen to. People want these lies because this is what they wish were true. They are projecting their own internal fantasies into reality.
But the lies need to be challenged. The bullshit needs to be fought and put down. All of this needs to be challenged, we can’t let disinformation and propaganda rule the day.
We have to fight for the truth in every venue.
Here are the remaining details of Trump corruption for this week:
November 30th —
December 1st —
December 2nd —
December 3rd --
- Rep. Collins' tactics in Judiciary will be different from Nunes conspiracy heavy approach.
- Key details of House Intel Impeachment report remain secret but they release a video to highlight the most damning moments of testimony.
- Sen. Kennedy walks back his DNC-Ukraine retraction. [Doubling down on the dumb.]
- Another appeals court backs the Deutsche Bank/Mazars financial subpoena.
- Former Ukrainian official Olena Zerkal says that she was aware of the security fund hold on July 30th.
- After pressure from Trump, a favorite Fox News Guest’s company is awarded a $400 Million contract for building the wall even though the company doesn't meet standards.
- The GOP base is fired up and is turning Impeachment into fundraising and rally-the-base tool.
- CNN's John Avlon blasts the Orwellian double-speak of GOP defense to Impeachment.
- Tucker Carlson again says he's on "Russia's side." [You could always defect!]
- WaPo writes that the Ukraine conspiracy started as a plot to undermine Mueller. [Yeah, that makes sense.]
- President Macron mansplains foreign policy on ISIS, Russia and NATO to Trump's face after he comes unglued over Impeachment "Adam Schiff is a deranged human being" at the NATO Summit in London. [That doesn't matter since he’s handing off to Nadler now.]
- Romney breaks with Trump on his debunked Ukraine conspiracy theory.
- Lindsay Graham floats "Censure" for Trump: "A Senate Trial would be too traumatic for the country." [I thought you thought this was "ALL BS?"] Lindsay Graham also doubts the Ukraine hacking arguments and says Russia hacked the DNC.
- Sen. Kamala Harris ends her campaign for 2020.
- ACLU court filing calls out DOJ for withholding docs connected to the Census report.
- IRS Whistleblower turns down the transcript Senate interview on Trump's tax audit.
- Devin Nunes hits CNN with a $435 Million defamation lawsuit over its report that Lev Parnas’ attorney says they met about the Ukraine scandal in Vienna.
- The Hill promises a review of John Solomon's stories on Ukraine.
- House Intelligence votes to refer their report to Judiciary which documents that Trump participated in a widespread conspiracy using the VP, Energy Secretary, the Acting Chief of Staff, Giuliani, Sondland and Volker to extort investigations out of Ukraine with a promise of a WH visit and Security Funds all for Trump's personal political benefit. It highlights Sean Hannity’s role in knee-capping Yovanovich and argues that Trump's obstruction is a danger to the structure of Democracy. The report includes lists of multiple calls between Giuliani and the WH on the same day that Yovanovich was recalled, multiple calls to OMB and to John Soloman, and also several phone calls between Nunes and Lev Parnas.
- Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) knew Trump was holding back aid funds [Parnas contributed funds to him, and he had called Trump about it] and had met with Sondland, Rick Perry, Volker to discuss Ukraine on May 23rd.
- Nunes tells Fox news he “doesn't recall Parnas” but the HIC report says they spoke on the phone 4 times.
- Rudy has been benched on Fox News and VP Pence is under the wheels of the Fox bus.
- Reports indicate Ivanka and Jared have been pushing Trump to fire Giuliani for over a year.
- McCarthy says it’s "No big deal" that Giuliani spoke with Nunes while Nunes was supposed to be investigating Giuliani.
- Frank Figliuzzi argues that Giuliani opened up Trump to a RICO investigation with his mob tactics.
- WH says the House Intel report reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger.
- John Dean says the HIC report displays obstruction which is worse than Nixon and Watergate.
- George Nader, who had set up a Putin back-channel for the Trump campaign, is indicted on campaign finance violations.
- Former Director of Intelligence Sue Gordan says the Trump frequently refuses to believe his intelligence briefings, and she was forced to resign after the departure of Dan Coats.
- Lev Parnas Attorney tells Nunes “You should have recused yourself.”
- David Corn of Mother Jones reports that the GOP prebuttal report is full of blatant lies, distortions, conspiracy theories and gaslighting.
December 4th —
- World Leaders including Boris Johnson, Macron and Trudeau huddle to laugh at Trump, so he leaves the NATO summit early in a huff and later lashes out at “Two-Faced" Trudeau.
- Fox Host claims the World leaders couldn't stand up to how Trump "dominated" the summit.
- Harvard Psychiatrist Dr. Lance Dodes says that Trump's attacks on Schiff are classic “projection.”
- GOP plans to turn Impeachment into a TV spectacle.
- Napolitano says he supports Impeachment; “Reasonable minds cannot disagree.”
- House Judiciary holds Impeachment Hearings, Ranking member Collins rolls his eyes as Chairman Nadler speaks then gives an excessively loud rant of his own. Then they try to derail things with motions to have Adam Schiff and the Whistleblower testify and the GOP writes a letter demanding a “minority day” of hearings. Constitution expert Pamela Karlan explains what constitutes bribery, fires back at Collins when he accuses her of not having read the testimony and says “If you don't impeach… you’re saying it’s fine to do this again.” Prof. Feldman sells that the Zelensky call changed his view of being pro-Impeachment, and Prof. Gerhardt says that the Mueller report contained significant evidence of obstruction. GOP witness Jonathan Turley makes a pathetic showing of doublse-talk, he claims Bill Clinton had to be impeached to protect the “existence of government”, he says bribery has to involve a “thing of value’ [it was valuable to Zelensky and Trump] and that the Impeachment is “moving too fast” with not enough direct witnesses. [Which are being obstructed by Trump.]
- Nunes bumbles his defense on meeting and talking to Parnas, claiming he didn't meet him in Vienna, but there’s $60,000 worth of receipts from the trip.
- Another GOPer sends out an email saying Rep. Ilhan Omar should be hanged.
- Giuliani travels back to Ukraine to help produce a right-wing documentary after claiming that all of his calls to OMB “may not have been about Ukraine.” [Then what were they about Rudy?]
- Kennedy says he's done pushing the DNC-Ukraine conspiracy.
- Rick Wilson scorches Trump’s GOP “Suicide Cult.”
- Greg Sargent argues in the WaPo that Trump wasn't duped by Russian disinformation, he spreads it willingly to serve his own interests.
- George Zimmerman sues Trayvon Martin’s family for $100 Million based on claims of "false evidence” from a documentary called the "Trayvon Hoax".
- Nunes accuses Democrats of "peddling conspiracy theories” because he had several phone calls with Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas. [Obviously, they were discussing pork futures.]
- Right-wing world loses their minds when Prof, Karlan says "Trump can name his son Barron, but can't make him a Baron" when discussion how America is not a monarchy.
- Prosecutor John Durham has reportedly told IG Horowitz that he failed to find any evidence of a “Deep State” in the FBI or CIA.
- Trump tries to claim that when he said “We need you to do US a favor, though” he meant America and not his campaign. [1) And that only took him 5 months to come up with and 2) America didn’t need to know about the “Crowdstrike Server” because it doesn't exist.]
- Rick Wilson trashes the GOP for siding with Putin over America.
December 5th —
December 6th —
- WH Officials dispute the call logs featured in the Impeachment report, claiming that the OMB number is controlled from the switchboard and Giuliani was not in contact with them in April and August.
- Graham pours cold water on House GOP effort to subpoena Adam Schiff.
- Trump was reportedly in “denial” that he would be Impeached, until yesterday. it’s reported that he spoke to Giuliani on an unsecured phone that was vulnerable to Russian surveillance and he reportedly fantasied in 2014 about Obama falling apart emotionally if he was Impeached. “He’d be a mess.” [More projection, if anyone would be cool about it, it would be Obama.]
- Former Republican Rep. Charlie Dent laughs as Rick Santorum tries to defend Trump’s Zelensky call claiming he wasn't asking for a personal benefit. [Yeah, he was.]
- Reps. Katie Porter and Max Rose introduce a bill that will require members of the executive branch to disclose all of their foreign connections as well as five years of tax returns. [This appears like a stab at the Bidens, but it would also hit Jared and Ivanka too.]
- Former Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko who had peddled stories of dirt on Biden’s family is arrested in Germany on charges linked to corruption and is awaiting extradition.
- Mike and Joe report that Trump’s polling in the Rustbelt is underwater, even if he survives impeachment. “Ohio, he’s minus five,” he explained. “Pennsylvania, minus seven, underwater. Iowa underwater, minus 13. Minnesota, underwater, minus 13. And the biggest two for last: Wisconsin, minus 14 and Michigan minus 14.” Then they bust Devin Nunes for his secret role in the Ukrainian scandal including his contacts with Giuliani and Lev Parnas.
- Giuliani makes the ridiculous claim that Trump had a constitutional duty to carry out his Ukraine scheme. [No, he didn’t.] Meanwhile he's making a documentary to defend Trump by attacking Biden and the Obama administration for promoting corruption in Ukraine using the word Andrii Telizhenko who has links to Russian Intelligence and Andriy Derkach, who a member of a pro-Russian party, attended the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow and whose father was a former KGB officer assigned to Ukraine.
- Sen Chris Murphy confirms that at least 5 GOP Senators are considering voting for Impeachment.
- Napolitano says he would definitely vote to Impeach.
- Ukraine’s ambassador to Austria slams Trump for providing Putin with enthusiastic help.
- Politico reports that some Democrats are disappointed that Trump’s violations of the emoluments clause will probably not be included in the articles of impeachment.
- Former CIA agent Marc Polymeropoulos writes that Trump's weird affection for Putin stifled a “whole of government” response to the 2016 Russian attack on our election.
- Lawyers for Anthony Comello, who killed mob underboss Francesco (Franky Boy) Cali of the Gambino crime family have been using a Qanon conspiracy theory in his defense, claiming he thought his victim was part of the “Deep State.”