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Home » A little stroll down memory lane on the MSM and the dossier

A little stroll down memory lane on the MSM and the dossier

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: Ace.]

How many of these people will ever apologize and/or correct? I rarely watch their shows so I don’t know for sure, but my money would be on “none of them.”

Comments

A little stroll down memory lane on the MSM and the dossier — 28 Comments

  1. Fascinating and very sad. They did move from “corroborated” to “not disproven,” but that’s as far as they got, and as far as most of them will ever go. This whole mess justifies the conservative belief that nothing coming from the MSM should be believed without, um, corroboration, from a creditable source.

  2. They will apologize the minute Walter Duranty does, and the times gives back the Pulitzer.

    which is never.

    IF he can lie about 8 million people being starved to death in one winter
    they can lie about less… they see things in a relative way…
    they even think its Einsteinian.

  3. They’ll never apologize since their audience doesn’t want to know that they’re being lied to. I believe that the small number of viewers who still regularly watch CNN and MSNBC only do so to have their biases confirmed, not to be subjected to things they might not argee with (even if those things might happen to be true). As such it really wouldn’t be in the interest of CNN and MSNBC to admit that they were wrong or that they lied. Their audience doesn’t want to hear about that. Their audience just wants stories, narratives that make them feel good about their own political positions, and give them hope that justice is coming for the bad orange man.

    I believe anyone that who actually cares about real news that’s presented fairly and in a relatively unbiased way (if that’s even possible) certainly won’t watch CNN and/or MSNBC.

  5. I was interested in the #Walkaway movement for a while and watched a bunch of videos to understand their reasons for leaving the Dems. There were several different reasons, but one common one was “they lied to me”. The speaker would describe accidentally coming across facts that contradicted the Dem/ MSM narrative and then searching and finding more and more contradictions that eventually flipped them to being a Trump supporter.

  6. DIGITAL NEWS PROJECT
    2017
    Bias, Bullshit and Lies Audience Perspectives on Low Trust in the Media
    By Nic Newman and Richard Fletcher – Reuters Institute

    In the US, a number of respondents said they regularly used independent fact-checking services like Snopes. Others saw fact-checking and verification as being a core part of the journalistic role.
    [snip]
    By contrast, credible and transparent sourcing by journalists seems to be respected across the political divide.
    [snip]
    In the US, unlike some other countries, journalism is seen as an important profession, with rigorous training and strong ethical standards. Those who trust the media have also picked up these cues
    [snip]
    Counterintuitively, we find that a willingness to admit mistakes is a significant driver of trust.

    2.1.8 Conclusion Overall, a significant proportion of news users say they trust the news media to separate fact from fiction. This group tends to be wealthier, older, and more interested in news than the general population. The majority of this group are invested in the news media and loyal to one or more brands, and our research has identified a number of key reasons for this.

    Mostly, this group thinks that journalists, at least from their favourite publication, are acting honourably and that they investigate stories thoroughly and professionally. Techniques to provide evidence – sources, quotes, expert statements – help to reinforce trust, perhaps to the extent that the brand or journalist becomes implicitly trusted over time. Visual clues that help show that journalists have done their homework (being in a specific location) also help build trust, as do new techniques such as fact-checking. Our research suggests that news organisations could benefit from emphasising these processes more, but mainly it is the lived experience of stories turning out to be accurate and fair again and again – over time – that is the biggest reason for trust.

    Of course, who watches the watchmen?
    Quis custodiet ipsos custodes Juvenal

    Go to snopes on the dossier, cause in the report above, such things increase certainty

    Report: DNC and Clinton Campaign Funded the Trump/Russia ‘Steele Dossier’

    Senate Intelligence Leaders Pressure Author of ‘Steele Dossier’ to Testify

    Fusion GPS: FBI Had a Source in Trump’s Circle During Campaign

    Takeaways from 1st Day of House Public Impeachment Hearings

    ‘Fake News’: Why Snopes Prefers Not to Say It Anymore

    Dems Demand Full Mueller Report; Trump Says OK with Him

    Did a Trump Campaign Advisor Demand Sen. John McCain ‘Answer Questions’ — Four Months After His Death?

    AP Sources: Lawyer Was Told Russia Had ‘Trump Over a Barrel’

    Far Right Blogs, Conspiracy Theorists Attack Parkland Mass Shooting Survivor

    What the GOP Memo Says (and Doesn’t Say)

    Nunes Memo Drops and Flops

    Trump Claims Memo ‘Totally Vindicates’ Him in Russia Probe

    House Committee Votes to Release Democrats’ Classified Memo

    Democratic, GOP Lawmakers Say Memo Doesn’t Clear Trump in Probe

    FBI Lawyer Suspected of Altering Russia Probe Document

    Democrats Launch New Probe of Trump’s Finances, Russia Ties

    Did the Man Who Oversaw the Bin Laden Raid Say It Would Be ‘An Honor’ If President Trump Revoked His Security Clearance?

    Trump Returns to ‘Witch Hunt’ Tweets Against Mueller Probe

    Was Donald Trump Seen at a Swiss Resort with Vladimir Putin Before the Election?

    its interesting to note that snopes only occaisionally says true or false..
    most of the time they point to AP articles, and others – occaisionally they assemble parts

    GIGO – Garbage In Garbage Out

    they are just using circles where (like feminists) they tap each other on the back to confirm something
    party 1 says party 2 is true, and party 3 says party two is true, snopes then says party 1 is true pointing to party 2
    [feminists give themselves awards to ligitimate themselves and make fake science
    having now destroyed social sciences other than use in law and proof needed for the public]

    Taking the most interesting ones out of that list (space reasons):

    Report: DNC and Clinton Campaign Funded the Trump/Russia ‘Steele Dossier’
    10/25/2017 – The Washington Post reported that a law firm representing the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign retained research firm Fusion GPS to investigate Trump.

    https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/10/25/dnc-clinton-campaign-pay-trump-russia-steele-dossier/
    Previous reports by the New York Times and others had stated that unnamed “Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton” contributed funding to the opposition research on presidential candidate Donald Trump that became known as the Steele Dossier, but this was the first time a direct link to the DNC or the Clinton campaign was established.
    [snip]
    CNN reported in February 2017 that some of the meetings that allegedly took place between Trump campaign officials and agents of the Russian government had been confirmed by sources familiar with U.S. intelligence intercepts.

    and

    The research was actually initiated in 2015 by “a wealthy Republican donor who strongly opposed Mr. Trump,” according to the New York Times, but when that source of funding dried up the San Francisco law firm Perkins Coie brokered a deal to keep it going on behalf of the Democrats.

    Fusion GPS: FBI Had a Source in Trump’s Circle During Campaign
    1/9/2018 – Founder Glenn Simpson told congressional investigators that releasing the identities of Fusion’s sources might endanger lives.

    …in the 300-plus page transcript of the interview released by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) on 9 January 2018, Simpson spoke highly of Steele, noting he insisted on contacting the Federal Bureau of Investigation once he uncovered what he believed to be evidence of wrongdoing. Simpson also described Steele as a modest “Boy Scout” with a sterling reputation, who is respected and regarded as reliable by his peers in the international intelligence community.

    Simpson said his firm contracted with Steele, a Russia expert, to help do fact-finding and research on Trump for unnamed political clients in the run-up to the election, and while he expected Steele to turn up evidence of corruption involving Trump’s business dealings, he was caught off guard by the information Steele was compiling, which seemed to indicate something more sinister was afoot.

    Simpson testified:
    You know, Russia is a dangerous place, it’s a kleptocracy and a police state, but it’s also a giant bureaucracy and in some ways it’s a much more open society, much more open than the Soviet Union ever was. You can pull records for companies and that sort of thing.

    and

    Essentially what [Steele] told me was they had other intelligence about this matter from an internal Trump campaign source and that — that they — my understanding was that they believed Chris at this point — that they believed Chris’s information might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization.

    [its a long page of stuff]

    AP Sources: Lawyer Was Told Russia Had ‘Trump Over a Barrel’
    8/31/2018 – A senior Justice Department lawyer says a former British spy told him at a breakfast meeting two years ago that Russian intelligence believed it had Donald Trump “over a barrel,” according to multiple people familiar with the encounter.

    AP Sources: Lawyer Was Told Russia Had ‘Trump Over a Barrel’
    https://www.snopes.com/ap/2018/08/31/ap-sources-lawyer-told-russia-trump-barrel/
    [the link does not bring up an article… it brings the snopes page up in an infinite circle]

    FBI Lawyer Suspected of Altering Russia Probe Document
    The allegation is part of a Justice Department inspector general investigation into the early days of the FBI’s Russia probe, which was ultimately taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller and resulted in charges against six Trump associates and more than two dozen Russians accused of interfering in the election.

    FBI lawyer suspected of altering Russia probe document
    https://apnews.com/5378465b54754da0ab1183bbd8953634
    Republicans have long attacked the credibility of the warrant application since it cited information derived from a dossier of opposition research compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy whose work was financed by Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign
    [snip]
    FBI Director Chris Wray has told Congress that he did not consider the FBI surveillance to be “spying” and that he has no evidence the FBI illegally monitored Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election. Wray said he would not describe the FBI’s surveillance as “spying” if it’s following “investigative policies and procedures.”

    Democrats Launch New Probe of Trump’s Finances, Russia Ties
    2/6/2019 – The intelligence committee also voted Wednesday to send Mueller the transcripts from the panel’s earlier Russia investigation.

    Democrats launch new probe of Trump’s finances, Russia ties
    https://apnews.com/e2290887dbcb4830a1a294abfc0447a2
    Schiff said the investigation will include “the scope and scale” of Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, the “extent of any links and/or coordination” between Russians and Trump’s associates, whether foreign actors have sought to hold leverage over Trump or his family and associates, and whether anyone has sought to obstruct any of the relevant investigations.

    [all they have is the article..
    so i guess they think its true that the democrats launched a new probe…
    which is not really what anyone wanted answered]

  7. The speaker would describe accidentally coming across facts that contradicted the Dem/ MSM narrative and then searching and finding more and more contradictions that eventually flipped them to being a Trump supporter. [PaulinBoston]

    Could be happening at CNN right now, in fact. In the small, acorn-shaped brain of that frosted blonde with her frosty attitude. Maybe Erin, too. Great piece of video.

  8. The speaker would describe accidentally coming across facts that contradicted the Dem/ MSM narrative and then searching and finding more and more contradictions that eventually flipped them to being a Trump supporter.

    Paul in Boston: Works for me, or more accurately, worked for me.

    After 9-11 the “Islam as the Religion of Peace” and “Why do they hate us?” memes struck me as utter BS. Then I began to question other things like the eco-doomster stuff and “white males as the root of all evil” and bingo. I was no longer a Democrat or a leftist.

  9. “The FBI would not have just taken a dossier to the FISA court, and used that as their predicate for the surveillance. They had to corroborate if for themselves. That’s how they operate.”

    So, what she’s saying is, We know they didn’t cheat because that would be cheating?

    …and now that we know they did, that’s not news?

  10. Remember, the federal bureau of intimidation has long been corrupt. Waco or Ruby Ridge or spying on MLK… any takers? Corrupt. The head of the fish.

  11. Great reminder — too bad those who should see it the most, the Hoax & Sham true-believing Dem Trump-haters, they won’t ever watch it.

    I believe that the small number of viewers who still regularly watch CNN and MSNBC only do so to have their biases confirmed,

    It’s a HUGE number of viewers, still, who watch CNN & MSNBC, read WaPo & NYT. So many, it’s still quite possible for Trump to lose re-election. Most of them full of pride, of “intellectual superiority” and “moral superiority”. So they won’t admit they were lied to and believed the lies … unless they convert.

    And it needs to be essentially a religious conversion, because they are currently still True Believers. Dem Fundamentalists. Maybe a third, or fourth, or only fifth of America, but more than half of the US elites. Still.

    The Swamp is actually still getting bigger under Trump, unfortunately. Tho I don’t blame him, and think he’s trying to drain it, but it’s really much much harder than he thought. And small victories aren’t even called “winning”, tho they should be.

  12. Then there’s the fake trade deal.

    Jagdish Bhaghwati has said that trade agreements are so complex that he (a trade scholar) no longer understands their implications. He says, in fact, that no one does in toto, though people who lobby for carve-outs do understand the particular carve-outs they receive. I gather Dr. Bhaghwati should just ring up your brilliant self, inasmuch as you can digest said trade deals in a matter of hours.

    And the fake not-QE from the Federal Reserve — just another half-trillion, no biggie.

    I gather the meaning of ‘overnight lending’ escapes you.

    The ratio of M1 to nominal gross domestic product stood at about 0.176 during the last quarter of 2016 and stood at 0.178 the 3d q of 2019. That of M2 to nominal GDP stood at 0.692 during the 4th q of 2016 and stood at 0.694 the 3d q of 2019. The annual rate of increase in the GDP Deflator since then has been 2.05%, while that of the Consumer Price Index has been 2.15%. Assets of the Federal Reserve Banks in sum were $4.504 tn in November 2016. They are $4.088 tn today.

  13. Eventually, the economic boom, assuming it continues, must make a difference even to people who don’t like Trump. It did for Clinton who had committed real crimes.

  14. Here is a bit from the WSJ on the phase one trade deal,

    Mr. Lighthizer also said China made specific commitments on intellectual property, including counterfeiting, patent and trademark issues and pharmaceutical rights, as well as on preventing the forced transfer of technology from firms entering the Chinese market. He and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He are expected to sign the deal in early January, with the pact entering into force 30 days later, Mr. Lighthizer said.
    —-
    Neither government submitted a full text or even a detailed summary of the deal, hamstringing efforts to determine the winners and losers in the world’s two biggest economies or the quality of the agreement.

    “specific commitments”
    Will the Chinese follow through and keep their word?

    “intellectual property” and “forced transfer of technology”
    This at least sounds like really big stuff. Those IP issues are a big and expansive realm of issues, so it’s almost certain that it will not cover all we could hope for, but even a little progress would be very good.

    How the hell did companies and our gov. ever agree to “forced transfer of tech.”? Yet it’s been a feature for a very long time. It would be huge, if this ended.

    No one is issuing a formal statement. That smells funny. Fingers crossed.

  15. Hi Neo!
    Getting back to the premise of your post. Those apologies. Not possible. An apology would require (1) intellectual honesty, and (2) a sense of shame. Let’s roll all the tapes, check all the quotes etc. Scan them closely. Can you find among the Democrats or their media acolytes even a slight whiff (I could make a joke about Swallwell but…) of those two virtues? I rest my case.

  17. i posted this in the other thread, given its format, it should have been here

    Horowitz blows apart Democratic talking points on FBI | SUPERcuts! #726
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31eBO-A5G_I

    IG Michael Horowitz’s testimony erases Democratic talking points about the FBI’s handling of the outset of the sprawling Russia investigation.

  18. Kate on December 13, 2019 at 2:45 pm said:
    Fascinating and very sad. They did move from “corroborated” to “not disproven,” but that’s as far as they got, and as far as most of them will ever go. This whole mess justifies the conservative belief that nothing coming from the MSM should be believed without, um, corroboration, from a creditable source.
    * * *
    Snopes need not apply, among others.
    I’m leaning heavily on the Babylon Bee for my news.

  19. Paul in Boston on December 13, 2019 at 3:21 pm said:
    I was interested in the #Walkaway movement for a while and watched a bunch of videos to understand their reasons for leaving the Dems. There were several different reasons, but one common one was “they lied to me”. The speaker would describe accidentally coming across facts that contradicted the Dem/ MSM narrative and then searching and finding more and more contradictions that eventually flipped them to being a Trump supporter.
    * * *
    The searching is the key part.
    I remember Straka (the founder) saying that he would try to show his leftist friends (he didn’t have any other kind at the time) the lies and contradictions that he was finding, and they simply were not interested, or didn’t believe him.
    It seems to me that discovering his peers simply did not value objectivity or facts really bothered him, and maybe many of the others as well.

  20. Kinda been looking for a place to put this, and it is at least tangential to the topic, which is the facility and alacrity with which reporters lie to advance their own partisan agendas.

    This shows some of the subtlety with which they do it, in order to lull the casual reader into accepting their assertions without question.
    I think we have seen the same process at work many times on different topics, but especially with regard to President Trump & the various conspiracies against him (it really is not too strong a word now, is it?), but also in just regular reports about, well, almost anything.
    This is how they get to the 90% negative coverage stat.

    https://ma.publiceditorpress.com/how-the-boston-globe-creates-fake-news/
    By: Allen Nitschelm on December 8, 2019

    How is “fake news” created by the media and published by the Boston Globe? Today’s example shows us how.

    Bank of America does a quarterly survey on small business trends. Last May, the media covered the results and Yahoo News reported them this way: “59% of small business owners say tariffs won’t affect them.” (see photo three). The May Yahoo News story is here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-of-america-small-business-survey-tariffs-134105906.html.

    Bank of America just released its most recent survey and the Globe covered an AP account of the results. But unlike May’s news, this is reported as a negative story about Donald Trump.

    The headline is “Survey finds small businesses hurt by Trump tariffs.” Wow, what a turnaround. If the survey found such results, the numbers must have taken an incredible dive. What percentage of these small businesses were “hurt” by the “Trump” tariffs? Get ready, because the answer is stunning. The percent hurt by the tariffs is “nearly a fifth.” In other words, 18 or 19%.

    The May story didn’t even mention this, so I went back to the Bank of America results directly and the percent who were worried over tariffs essentially hadn’t changed. It was 18%. (See https://about.bankofamerica.com/assets/pdf/Spring_2019_SBOR.pdf).

    The AP story that the Globe based its short piece on is here: https://apnews.com/a565abf3785743a59cee37fd3a5a759c The AP story did not include “Trump” in its headline, but its copy was just as bad. It conflates tariff “effects” as bad effects, when half are mixed. And of the respondents who reported an increase in harm, the number went from “18% in the spring” to “nearly a fifth” now. As I have already explained, that is again the same result. No increase.

    So the May article emphasized that most small business owners were unaffected while the December story reported this small number who were negatively affected, even though it wasn’t the majority of the responses. So it begs the question, how many in the most recent survey reported being unaffected? The number was 56%. That is almost the same as in May. Sounds like a number close to the margin of error.

    So in the latest survey, 56% of the survey respondents did not think the tariffs would be harmful, yet the Boston Globe’s headline is that the survey found the opposite. That is classic Fake News, meant to cast President Trump in a negative light.

    “Begs the question” is misused where is should say “raises the question,” as is now usual; my biggest complaint against journalists (after the malicious spinning) is their illiteracy.

  21. https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/12/13/wapo-say-schiff-rebuttal-nunes-memo/

    [lots of detail comparing the two memos and the Horowitx report]
    …
    These are a series of corrupt acts that go to the heart of whether Operation Crossfire Hurricane was a corrupt investigation. That is precisely the issue about which Nunes warned in his memo, and the Horowitz report corroborates each of the factual claims Nunes made in that warning.

    It certainly looks as though Nunes can claim a very large amount of vindication. The media, on the other hand, should be asking itself why it found Schiff so credible in his defense of secret surveillance of a US citizen by counterintelligence operations on the basis of a discredited oppo research file. Is it that they just preferred Schiff’s anti-Trump narrative above all other considerations?

  22. https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/12/13/that-didnt-age-well-federalist-cofounder-drags-media-for-their-past-takes-on-trump-dossier-n2557980

    The Mueller report eviscerated the dossier. And now the DOJ IG report has delivered the final kill shot into this garbage document that the liberal media peddled as factual and accurate. This is the foundation of this Russian collusion manufactured lie that engulfed news cycles for the past two years that in the end, turned out to be pure fiction. This dossier has no more value than a roll of Charmin toilet paper. And Sean Davis, The Federalist co-founder, not only took a victory lap but found old tweets from past reporters and commentators, especially those from CNN, who defended the dossier as credible. Other reporters, including some from non-conservative outlets, have been calling out the liberal media establishment for their Trump dossier shilling as well. It’s very satisfying.

  23. Elizabeth Vaughn reminds us of this also episode that the Dems would like to drop down the memory hole.

    https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/12/13/unsung-hero-admiral-mike-rogers-obama%E2%80%99s-nsa-chief-discovered-administration%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98702%E2%80%99-illegal-spying-operation-briefed-trump-surveillance-trump-tower/

    I once posted about an Obama administration official who actually had integrity, a man who noticed that something was amiss and acted. It was this man who traveled to Trump Tower on November 17, 2016, to brief then-President-elect Donald Trump that communications from the building were being tapped. He did not notify his superior, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, beforehand. This man’s name is Mike Rogers. He served as the head of the National Security Agency (NSA).

    But Rogers’ role went beyond informing Trump about the surveillance being conducted at Trump Tower.
    A couple of years earlier, Rogers discovered that American citizens were being spied upon and drew attention to the abuse of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the Obama administration. According to former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova, Section 702 allows the government to essentially weaponize the NSA’s ability to collect data and surveil private U.S. citizens. In light of IG Horowitz’s report, this man’s story becomes even more relevant.
    …
    Clearly, the potential for abuse under the 702 program is great.

    Dating back to 2012, the 702 program was used to spy on Americans, which is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

    The Epoch Times’ Jeff Carlson wrote a detailed article about this entitled “An American Hero and the Death of a FISA Narrative” in January 2018. (He also provides a precise account of the Obama administration’s violations of the 702 program.)
    Carlson, in the above-mentioned article, speculates that Obama administration officials didn’t obtain the FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page for the purpose of collecting information, but rather, because they had already spied on the campaign, they needed it to “explain” the information they had previously collected.

    I wonder if Durham and Barr will reach the same conclusion.

  25. They’ll never apologize, but that’s OK because Saint Greta of Climate Hysteria will line them up against the wall anyway if they don’t do something quickly to save her Nobel Peace Prize…or whatever.

  26. Those who claim Fox News fails to cover both sides of the political divide need to explain how it is, then, that Chris Wallace remains employed there.

  27. I gather the meaning of ‘overnight lending’ escapes you.
    Assets of the Federal Reserve Banks in sum were $4.504 tn in November 2016. They are $4.088 tn today. [Art Deco]

    Here’s the Fed’s own chart for you. I didn’t make it up, LOL.

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL

    Use the 5-Yr option to see this clearly. I tried to put it up that way but it reverted back to the full series.

    Shows the current rebound. Add $415 billion for New Year’s. Add several hundred billion more as they’ve already announced for the next several months. Puts them above the high point on that chart.

    I don’t really know what your point is other than quibbling. Seems a time-waster, but I’m replying. The Fed is QEing like mad again but calling it NOT-QE. I would call it FAKE NOT-QE. Fakery abounds; it is going to be one of the most outstanding features of these times when the histories get written, IMO.

  28. Who is the Fed bailing out with this latest burst? Which comes after Chairman Powell said they were going to normalize interest rates and their enormous balance sheet, and started to, as the figures and the chart show.

    They did not know what was going wrong in the repo market. They were taken by surprise. Does that sound familiar? It should sound familiar to anyone who listened to Ben Bernanke talk about 2007-08, when neither recession nor any mortgage credit issues were anywhere on the horizon (he said).

    So who are they bailing out? Some say it is J.P. Morgan forcing this by rebalancing and shifting their assets and liabilities. Some say it is hedge funds. Whatever, the key point is the Fed didn’t expect this and had to reverse strategies 180 degrees. They are in a trap entirely of their own making and everyone in America is going to pay something toward the eventual horrorshow results of their doings.

    JMO….. : )

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