Trump on releasing the JFK records

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

And so, instead, you rely on Trump-friendly fake news sites for your information.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I do not understand why you would make assumptions, or make a disparaging comments about what news I read or watch.

 

It's an assumption based on years of observing everything you say about Russiagate and the January 6 shenanigans, the latter of which was obviously instigated by Trump himself and his associates. That is to say, obvious to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.

For you to miss all that, surely you must have gotten your information from Trump-friendly fake news sites. The sites that don't report anything negative about Trump.

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

30 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

It's an assumption based on years of observing everything you say about Russiagate and the January 6 shenanigans, the latter of which was obviously instigated by Trump himself and his associates. That is to say, obvious to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.

For you to miss all that, surely you must have gotten your information from Trump-friendly fake news sites. The sites that don't report anything negative about Trump.

 

 

You are incorrect in your assumptions.

I read a wide range of news outlets, from alt-l and alt-r to some standard outlets such as NYT (usually a couple days late, when I can get around the paywall). 

There are very serious journalists, such as Matt Taibbi, who are skeptical and dubious about the standard narratives regarding Russiagate and Jan. 6.

Taibbi is not a Trump loyalist and neither am I. 

You have been informed of the three-part Columbia Journalism Review series that explained the many weaknesses, even regrettable excesses and failures, in the media Russiagate story. The CJR, in general, is a liberal media publication, and not a Trump outlet. 

That said, for the purposes of the EF-JFKA, being a Trump loyalist is certainly a valid political stance, as valid as being a Biden loyalist or an RFK2 loyalist. 

As a moderator, you should take pains to create a collegial forum, in which different viewpoints---pro-Trump, pro-Biden or pro-RFK2---are respected, and none disparaged (excepting overt hate speech, personal insults, etc.). 

I have not formed any opinions regarding your reading habits, and I respect whatever views you bring to EF-JFKA. 

I do not disparage your commentary.  We are just on different pages. 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

You are incorrect in your assumptions.

 

I stand corrected. You get your news from from both left-wing and right-wing fake news sites, and very little from mainstream news.

(Not that everything is fake on fake news sites. But too much is.)

 

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I read a wide range of news outlets, from alt-l and alt-r to some standard outlets such as NYT (usually a couple days late, when I can get around the paywall). 

 

alt-l  =  left-wing fake news        (Source)

alt-r  =  right-wing fake news     (Source)

 

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

There are very serious journalists, such as Matt Taibbi, who are skeptical and dubious about the standard narratives regarding Russiagate and Jan. 6.

 

Matt Taibbi is a Democrat hating, MSM hating, political commentator.

 

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

You have been informed of the three-part Columbia Journalism Review series that explained the many weaknesses, even regrettable excesses and failures, in the media Russiagate story. The CJR, in general, is a liberal media publication, and not a Trump outlet. 

 

I wouldn't call that series a CJR one so much as a Jeff Gerth one. Here is David Corn's answer to it:

 

Columbia Journalism Review’s Big Fail: It Published 24,000 Words on Russiagate and Missed the Point

The magazine’s attempted takedown of the media’s coverage bolsters Trump’s phony narrative.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/02/columbia-journalism-review-jeff-gerth-trump-russia-the-media/

 

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

As a moderator, you should take pains to create a collegial forum, in which different viewpoints---pro-Trump, pro-Biden or pro-RFK2---are respected, and none disparaged (excepting overt hate speech, personal insults, etc.). 

 

I criticized your selection of news sources and you criticized my aggressive debating style. I take no offense... maybe you shouldn't either.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I stand corrected. You get your news from from both left-wing and right-wing fake news sites, and very little from mainstream news.

(Not that everything is fake on fake news sites. But too much is.)

 

 

alt-l  =  left-wing fake news        (Source)

alt-r  =  right-wing fake news     (Source)

 

 

Matt Taibbi is a Democrat hating, MSM hating, political commentator.

 

 

I wouldn't call that series a CJR one so much as a Jeff Gerth one. Here is David Corn's answer to it:

 

Columbia Journalism Review’s Big Fail: It Published 24,000 Words on Russiagate and Missed the Point

The magazine’s attempted takedown of the media’s coverage bolsters Trump’s phony narrative.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/02/columbia-journalism-review-jeff-gerth-trump-russia-the-media/

 

 

I criticized your selection of news sources and you criticized my debating style. I take no offense... maybe you shouldn't either.

 

You have the last word. 

I look forward to further comments from you, on a wide range of topics. 

[Sandy Larsen]

12 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

You have the last word. 

I look forward to further comments from you, on a wide range of topics. 

 

P.S. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I could learn some good manners from Ben Cole.

I could, but I probably won't.

 

[Ron Bulman]

Interesting numbers for this thread given it's content and time frame compared to others.  Maybe I didn't follow it close enough.  

[Benjamin Cole]

7 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Interesting numbers for this thread given it's content and time frame compared to others.  Maybe I didn't follow it close enough.  

For me, the more interesting question is, "If RFK2 Wins the Presidency...will he really open up the JFK Records?" 

I suspect "yes."

Some say RFK2 has no chance, the electoral college will box him out. 

I wonder. Ross Perot ran a terrible campaign against much stronger candidates than Trump and Biden---Perot ran against Clinton and Bush Sr. in 1992. Perot actually dropped out of the race for an extended period, and then decided to run anyway. 

Whatever you say, Perot face serious smart credible candidates. Perot got 19% of the vote, and so the plurality in most states went to Clinton, meaning Perot got nothing. 

RFK2 is running against much weaker candidates, in a very dispirited nation. If RFK2 can just poll a little higher than Perot, towards 30%, then it becomes a three-way race for the plurality in each state. 

Maybe the JFK Records will see the light of day at last! 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust

Another deeply experienced journalist, and obviously not a Trumper, raises serious questions about media coverage, and NPR coverage, of the Russiagate follies, the Hunter Biden laptop, and COVID-19. 

Remember, Bret Stephens of the NYT called Russiagate affair and media coverage  "an elaborate hoax." I do not think the NYT is a Trumpified news outlet. 

My point in posting this is not to valorize Trump. It is to remind people of the lessons you know from the JFKA: Do not trust state, major party and mainstream media narratives. 

 

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust

Another deeply experienced journalist, and obviously not a Trumper, raises serious questions about media coverage, and NPR coverage, of the Russiagate follies, the Hunter Biden laptop, and COVID-19. 

Remember, Bret Stephens of the NYT called Russiagate affair and media coverage  "an elaborate hoax." I do not think the NYT is a Trumpified news outlet. 

My point in posting this is not to valorize Trump. It is to remind people of the lessons you know from the JFKA: Do not trust state, major party and mainstream media narratives. 

 

Ben,

     Brett Stephens has always been one of NYT's hardcore Neocon propagandists.  As a multi-decade NYT subscriber, I can assure you that Stephens' credibility is generally abysmal.  

     As for Uri Berliner's moronic hit piece on NPR this week, Kevin Drum completely demolished it in a few concise paragraphs yesterday.*  

     I'm going to re-print Drum's demolition of Berliner's hit piece, because he specifically debunks the bogus MAGA "Russiagate hoax" trope that you and Kevin Hofeling have been repeating on this very thread.

     Incidentally, you have repeatedly claimed to have respect for "diverse viewpoints" on this forum, so I want to point out, once again, that it isn't "respectful" of you to repeatedly ignore the facts posted by forum members that debunk your paradigms.

      Kindly pay attention to Kevin Drum's facts about Russiagate and the Mueller Report -- which are identical to my comments (above) on this thread.

The peculiar tale of NPR’s decline and fall – Kevin Drum (jabberwocking.com)

* The peculiar tale of NPR’s decline and fall

Kevin Drum

 

April 9, 2024 – 4:36 pm

Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at NPR, has written a buzzy article at the Free Press about how NPR has recently fallen apart. He attributes this to widespread changes following the murder of George Floyd in 2020:

There’s [now] an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed. It’s frictionless—one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.

I haven't listened to NPR in decades, but I don't doubt there's some truth to this. Oddly, though, it comes only in the second half of Berliner's piece. In the first half he offers three examples of stories where NPR "faltered," and not one of them has anything to do with racism, transphobia, and so forth. Nor is it clear the NPR actually faltered much. Here they are:

• NPR ran lots of stories about Donald Trump's collusion with Russia but never issued a mea culpa when special prosecutor Robert Mueller exonerated him.
  .
  Mueller specifically said he never even addressed "collusion" because it's not a legal term. However, he did document a large number of links between Trump and Russia. These links are the things everyone was reporting about, and Mueller mostly confirmed that they had happened. He just didn't think they rose to the level of indictment.

• NPR ignored the Hunter Biden laptop story during the tail end of the 2020 presidential campaign. But the laptop later turned out to be real.
  .
  "Later" is doing a lot of work here. At the time the laptop story was dodgy in the extreme. The narrative about a blind PC repair guy who just happened to contact Rudy Giuliani was bizarre. Multiple outlets passed on the story before the New York Post ran it, and even one of their reporters was so skeptical he refused to allow his byline to be used. Other reporters who followed up on the story found nothing. Giuliani refused to let anyone examine the hard drive. There was never any evidence implicating Joe Biden. The entire thing bore all the hallmarks of Republican ratxxxxery and deserved to be treated skeptically by reputable journalists.

• NPR consistently reported that COVID-19 had a natural origin even though there was plenty of evidence that it might have been the result of a lab leak.
  .
  In this case NPR was entirely in the right. The authors of "Proximal Origins," which supported the natural origins theory very early on, didn't have any secret doubts about what they wrote. There's no serious evidence that Anthony Fauci or anyone else manipulated evidence in favor of natural origins. The lab leak theory was motivated from the start not by scientific evidence but by (admittedly legitimate) suspicion of China's behavior combined with the coincidence of the virus breaking out in a city that contained a major biolab. The lab leak hypothesis has always been unlikely, and over time has gotten ever more unlikely. It's all but completely discredited now.

In all three of these instances, Berliner has fallen prey to a sort of conventional centrist wisdom that requires liberal reporters to bend over backward in order to be "fair" to right-wing inventions. But at least in these three cases, conservatives don't have a leg to stand on. Berliner is accusing NPR of nothing more than exercising pretty good editorial judgment.

Facebook Twitter Email Print

 

Edited April 12 by W. Niederhut

[Cliff Varnell]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Remember, Bret Stephens of the NYT called Russiagate affair and media coverage  "an elaborate hoax." I do not think the NYT is a Trumpified news outlet. 

My point in posting this is not to valorize Trump. It is to remind people of the lessons you know from the JFKA: Do not trust state, major party and mainstream media narratives. 

Do not trust narratives promoted by Ben Cole. 

Stephens referred to the Steele Dossier and the FBI surveillance of Carter Page as an "elaborate hoax."  Nothing came of the Page surveillance and the Steele Dossier was barely mentioned in the Mueller Report.

 

Edited April 12 by Cliff Varnell

[Benjamin Cole]

Matt Taibbi's take on the recent spate of stories regarding NPR (I apologize for the truncated article; I am not a Taibbi subscriber....): 

Orwell Watch: NPR and the Death of Fairness

A story about facts and decency is quickly reduced to another partisan bias tale.

MATT TAIBBI APR 13   ∙   PREVIEW

READ IN APP

Earlier this week on The Free Press, Uri Berliner dropped a bomb on the public media world with “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.” As discussed on the new America This Week, the longtime senior editor described how NPR fumbled three stories: Covid, the Hunter Biden laptop affair, and the Trump-Russia scandal. Regarding the latter:

At NPR, we hitched our wagon to Trump’s most visible antagonist, Representative Adam Schiff… Schiff, who was the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became NPR’s guiding hand, its ever-present muse. By my count, NPR hosts interviewed Schiff 25 times about Trump and Russia. During many of those conversations, Schiff alluded to purported evidence of collusion. The Schiff talking points became the drumbeat of NPR news reports.

But when the Mueller report found no credible evidence of collusion, NPR’s coverage was notably sparse. Russiagate quietly faded from our programming… It is one thing to swing and miss on a major story. Unfortunately, it happens… What’s worse is to pretend it never happened, to move on with no mea culpas, no self-reflection.

Berliner’s piece was immediately swallowed, mangled, and regurgitated as new propaganda. CNN media writer Oliver Darcy wrote “NPR faces right-wing revolt and calls for defunding after editor claims left-wing bias,” establishing the format that this was not about factual impropriety, but about a “right-wing revolt” against claimed “left-wing bias.” The New York Times did much the same thing, saying “NPR is in Turmoil After It is Accused of Left-Wing Bias,” adding that Berliner’s piece generated “firestorm… especially among conservatives.” On cue, human error-vane Jonathan Chait chimed in to insist “The Media Did Not Make Up Trump’s Russia Scandal.” 

But this wasn’t about “bias.” It was about ethics, or a lack of them. But this has been going on for so long, most people have forgotten what ethics look like. Audiences have been trained to think that a station or person that doesn’t make overtly political coverage decisions is just hiding its real biases, which must be either right-wing, corrupt, or both. So someone like Berliner, when he talks about feeling “obliged” to cover even Donald Trump fairly, is actually just concealing a form of unfairness, or inspiring another tribe of unfair actors. Fair equals unfair. It’s impressive propaganda, actually. His story brought back bad memories:...

---30---

One fact seems to get buried. Of 87 staffers in the NPR DC office, 87 are D-Party members. 

If NPR were a private-sector media outfit, that would be their business. This imbalance at NPR strikes me as taxpayer-funded mouthpiece for one of the major political parties. 

Also, how will NPR treat independent third-party candidates? 

 "I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None. 

So on May 3, 2021, I presented the findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting. When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans,"

[W. Niederhut]

On 4/11/2024 at 9:03 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Ben,

     Brett Stephens has always been one of NYT's hardcore Neocon propagandists.  As a multi-decade NYT subscriber, I can assure you that Stephens' credibility is generally abysmal.  

     As for Uri Berliner's moronic hit piece on NPR this week, Kevin Drum completely demolished it in a few concise paragraphs yesterday.*  

     I'm going to re-print Drum's demolition of Berliner's hit piece, because he specifically debunks the bogus MAGA "Russiagate hoax" trope that you and Kevin Hofeling have been repeating on this very thread.

     Incidentally, you have repeatedly claimed to have respect for "diverse viewpoints" on this forum, so I want to point out, once again, that it isn't "respectful" of you to repeatedly ignore the facts posted by forum members that debunk your paradigms.

      Kindly pay attention to Kevin Drum's facts about Russiagate and the Mueller Report -- which are identical to my comments (above) on this thread.

The peculiar tale of NPR’s decline and fall – Kevin Drum (jabberwocking.com)

* The peculiar tale of NPR’s decline and fall

Kevin Drum

 

April 9, 2024 – 4:36 pm

Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at NPR, has written a buzzy article at the Free Press about how NPR has recently fallen apart. He attributes this to widespread changes following the murder of George Floyd in 2020:

There’s [now] an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed. It’s frictionless—one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.

I haven't listened to NPR in decades, but I don't doubt there's some truth to this. Oddly, though, it comes only in the second half of Berliner's piece. In the first half he offers three examples of stories where NPR "faltered," and not one of them has anything to do with racism, transphobia, and so forth. Nor is it clear the NPR actually faltered much. Here they are:

• NPR ran lots of stories about Donald Trump's collusion with Russia but never issued a mea culpa when special prosecutor Robert Mueller exonerated him.
  .
  Mueller specifically said he never even addressed "collusion" because it's not a legal term. However, he did document a large number of links between Trump and Russia. These links are the things everyone was reporting about, and Mueller mostly confirmed that they had happened. He just didn't think they rose to the level of indictment.

• NPR ignored the Hunter Biden laptop story during the tail end of the 2020 presidential campaign. But the laptop later turned out to be real.
  .
  "Later" is doing a lot of work here. At the time the laptop story was dodgy in the extreme. The narrative about a blind PC repair guy who just happened to contact Rudy Giuliani was bizarre. Multiple outlets passed on the story before the New York Post ran it, and even one of their reporters was so skeptical he refused to allow his byline to be used. Other reporters who followed up on the story found nothing. Giuliani refused to let anyone examine the hard drive. There was never any evidence implicating Joe Biden. The entire thing bore all the hallmarks of Republican ratxxxxery and deserved to be treated skeptically by reputable journalists.

• NPR consistently reported that COVID-19 had a natural origin even though there was plenty of evidence that it might have been the result of a lab leak.
  .
  In this case NPR was entirely in the right. The authors of "Proximal Origins," which supported the natural origins theory very early on, didn't have any secret doubts about what they wrote. There's no serious evidence that Anthony Fauci or anyone else manipulated evidence in favor of natural origins. The lab leak theory was motivated from the start not by scientific evidence but by (admittedly legitimate) suspicion of China's behavior combined with the coincidence of the virus breaking out in a city that contained a major biolab. The lab leak hypothesis has always been unlikely, and over time has gotten ever more unlikely. It's all but completely discredited now.

In all three of these instances, Berliner has fallen prey to a sort of conventional centrist wisdom that requires liberal reporters to bend over backward in order to be "fair" to right-wing inventions. But at least in these three cases, conservatives don't have a leg to stand on. Berliner is accusing NPR of nothing more than exercising pretty good editorial judgment.

Facebook Twitter Email Print

 

Classic Ben Cole.

He ignores the facts posted (above) debunking Uri Berliner's bogus NPR hit piece and simply re-posts the erroneous anti-NPR spam from the MAGA-verse.   Ben is, apparently, "keeping an open mind."  🙄

And, incidentally, right on cue, Donald Trump called for the total de-funding of NPR today.

If Trump had his way, the only extant media would be the numerous MAGA propaganda corporations funded by right wing billionaires in the U.S. -- Fox, Newsmax, Breitbart, Sinclair Broadcasting, Real Clear Politics, Townhall.com, et.al.

 

KEEPING AN OPEN MIND ABOUT RUSSIAGATE AND JANUARY 6TH

 

 

Edited April 13 by W. Niederhut

[K K Lane]

I started this thread to discuss the claim that Trump has been shown information (that he can't share) about JFKA that prevented him from releasing more JFKA documents.   This post then went on an entirely different - but sometimes interesting - diversion to political topics unrelated to my initial post.

Now, speaker Mike Johnson has admitted that he changed his long-held views on FISA after becoming speaker and being shown intelligence that he can't share with either the public or even other Congressman.     I recall Chuck Schumer's "warning" that senators and congressmen must be careful going against the intelligence community because the IC has so many ways of exacting revenge.  How can the truth emerge about JFKA (or how can the country make sound public policy at all) if the IC can always make unchallengeable security claims that can't be publicly shared to get their way?

[Matt Allison]

2 hours ago, K K Lane said:

Now, speaker Mike Johnson has admitted that he changed his long-held views on FISA after becoming speaker and being shown intelligence that he can't share with either the public or even other Congressman.     I recall Chuck Schumer's "warning" that senators and congressmen must be careful going against the intelligence community because the IC has so many ways of exacting revenge.  How can the truth emerge about JFKA (or how can the country make sound public policy at all) if the IC can always make unchallengeable security claims that can't be publicly shared to get their way?

Or maybe he just saw intelligence that proves we really are under threat.

I know it's difficult for some on this board to contemplate sometimes, but there really are other countries in the world more nefarious than the one you live in.

[Matt Allison]

In the least surprising news ever, the NPR hit piece has already been found to be full of outright lies, and has been thoroughly debunked: