It’s All Fake

Back in Obama’s first months on the throne, Rick Santelli, a TV personality, was “reporting” from the floor of the stock exchange. He responded to a question about Obama’s housing plan with a rant about socialism, finishing it off with a call for a new Tea Party. Whether it was spontaneous or choreographed is hard to know, but at the time people took it to be entirely spontaneous. Santelli is a carny barker prone to getting carried away on the air and his rant had the feel of an old fashioned stem winder.

Regardless of the intent or the execution, the rant went viral and the Tea Party Movement was born. Middle America was ready to be pissed off due to the terribleness of the Bush years, so Obama’s poor start put the normies in a fighting mood. Before long people were showing up at town hall meetings, dressed as Samuel Adams, giving their congressman the business about reckless government behavior that had made a hash of things. Since the Democrats were the majority, they got the brunt of the abuse.

It did not take long for the moonbats to declare the whole thing a racist conspiracy cooked up by the twelfth invisible Hitler in league with the eternal cyclops of the KKK. This was when the fake hate crime stuff got its start as a daily phenomenon. It was also when it became apparent to a lot of people that the news is mostly fake. The increasingly deranged Nancy Pelosi, slurring about “Astroturf” was so weird, it begged a challenge, but the news people carried on like it was manifestly true.

The claim that middle aged suburbanites, dressed in tricorne hats, were paid agents of a nefarious conspiracy was so nutty that the response from the press should have been laughter and then derision. After all, it has been known for decades that the Left uses rent-a-mobs. They pay people to show up and hold signs. Unions have been doing this since the days of Jimmy Hoffa. For the Democrats to clutch their pearls and call the Tea Party inauthentic should have been too much of a farce for even the very liberal press corp.

I’ve often wondered if that was when a lot of people started to think the corruption in Washington was worse than they imagined. The corruption of the Tea Party by Conservative Inc surely turned a lot of people to the dark side, but the priming agent may well have been the AstroTurf stuff. It was so obvious that the media was coordinating their coverage with the Left, it was hard not to notice it. The game was rigged and nothing in the media was on the level. It was not just bias, it was collusion.

The question is, how fake is it? The answer may be, more fake than you think.

A majority of online and social media defenders of Obamacare are professionals who are “paid to post,” according to a digital expert.

“Sixty percent of all the posts were made from 100 profiles, posting between the hours of 9 and 5 Pacific Time,” said Michael Brown. “They were paid to post.”

Since so much of the mass media is now intertwined with social media, the authenticity of social media is a useful proxy for the authenticity of the mass media. It’s right to assume that social media is mostly fake.

The largest network ties together more than 350,000 accounts and further work suggests others may be even bigger.

UK researchers accidentally uncovered the lurking networks while probing Twitter to see how people use it.

Some of the accounts have been used to fake follower numbers, send spam and boost interest in trending topics.

On Twitter, bots are accounts that are run remotely by someone who automates the messages they send and activities they carry out. Some people pay to get bots to follow their account or to dilute chatter about controversial subjects.

“It is difficult to assess exactly how many Twitter users are bots,” said graduate student Juan Echeverria, a computer scientist at UCL, who uncovered the massive networks.

Mr Echeverria’s research began by combing through a sample of 1% of Twitter users in order to get a better understanding of how people use the social network.

However, analysis of the data revealed some strange results that, when probed further, seemed to reveal lots of linked accounts, suggesting one person or group is running the botnet. These accounts did not act like the bots other researchers had found but were clearly not being run by humans.

This would explain the strange disparity in followers you see in Twitter. I’ve had people with tens of thousands of followers post a link to this site and the traffic was a few click throughs. On the other hand, a Ricky Vaughn tweet would net thousands of hits in minutes and it would last hours. That told me real humans were reading his timeline. It also suggests that those follower counts for allegedly famous people may be fake. We know people have bought followers for social media, but the scale has never been examined.

That may be changing. ZeroHedge used on-line traffic tools to figure out that major news sites have most likely hired Chinese click farms to help them game their traffic numbers, even though these sites are blocked in China. These sorts of solicitations come through the contact page of this site on a daily basis so it is nothing new. If the big major sites have succumbed to temptation in order to fraudulently boost their traffic counts, it is safe to assume all of them are doing it.

None of this surprises those who turned to the dark side when Darth Vader was still in knickers. The JournoList scandal was thrown down the memory hole, but the hate thinkers still remember it. The rampant fraud on Facebook with regards to their advertising is starting to impact on-line ads. That was entirely predictable if you have been following these things. But now, the general public is noticing that not only is the news fake, the people behind it look a lot like people our betters have been warning us about for years.

What may push everyone over the edge is the mother of all fake news stories, the entirely fictional Russian Hacking™ scandal. There is nothing about this that passes the laugh test. No one can even explain what it is the Russians supposedly did. No one can explain how Trump people talking to Russians is different from everyone else who regularly talks with Russians. It’s as if the media has been infected with a rage virus. Of course, it’s obvious that the hysteria is part of an orchestrated campaign to undermine Trump.

In other words, it’s all fake.

And it will end poorly.

108 thoughts on “It’s All Fake

  1. The term ‘AstroTurfing’ is an interesting point of fake journalism which is used in many aspects of our culture.

  2. Hey, Bonehead… the crap that Santelli was ranting about started with the Marxist-Democrat Fair Housing Act of 1977 and their Marxist-Democrat meddling in the free market blew up while Bush was in office. Obama was promoting MORE meddling in crap the Government never had any business in…when they can’t even balance their own @#$&% budget! The DEMOCRATS and their RINO cohorts is what pissed off the folks that joined the TEA Party movement. Stop trying to deflect the blame away from the Party of Sedition.

  3. Zman, I hope you are working up an epic post, vis a vis Trump calling Obama out? Can you give us just an ACK or a NACK? I am asking for a friend….

  4. Trump just handed Obama, Jarret, the MSM, the Dems, the GOPe an anchor to hold, as they sink to the bottom of the deep blue sea. This spying stuff is unprecedented, in that a sitting president and his predecessor are locked in mortal combat. and that the spying is documented ensures the media have to cover it. This is the broom that Trump will use to clean out all the dem zombies from the federal bureaucracy.

    • Karl, Levin has laid out the basic case, but the House now has to include Obama-Spy-Gate in its Russia investigations. Subpoenas for the two FISA probable cause applications would be a good start. I’m concerned that they don’t have the balls. I hope I’m wrong. Let’s see what Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence does.

  5. Trump is nothing like the surrender monkeys liberals have been accustomed to rolling. The problem is, unlike the Republican Gentlemen’s Club, Trump is not a gentleman. And he’s not budging. Over to you, progs.

  6. Pingback: Global and Info wars SITREP | The Vineyard of the Saker

  7. “Whether it was spontaneous or choreographed is hard to know,…”

    No, it isn’t. Anyone who was watching that day, knows.

    • I was watching that day and i don’t know if it was spontaneous or choreographed so you are wrong.

  8. I like Trump, I voted for him, but the truth is, he ain’t always right: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/03/trump-talks-school-choice-meets-4th-graders-parents-at-florida-catholic-school.html
    Of course, he means well, it’s just he doesn’t understand ”Vouchered Reality”: http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=6188
    He’s parroting something you’ll hear every fall on talk radio, right down to specifically praising Catholic schools.
    Trouble is, even if he were to fund a voucher program out of his own substantial bank account, it would be disastrous :
    https://www.amren.com/features/2016/12/blacks-changed-school/

    • Ghetto public schools are holding pens where no teaching or learning is taking place. If vouchers on a large scale were only issued to poor families then we’d really find out if they worked or not. As an aside, I am almost automatically for anything that the teacher’s unions are against, and they hate vouchers.

  9. Pingback: It’s All Fake | We Seek the Truth!

  10. I’ve been reading a small book on ancient Greece by M.I. Finley. Picked it up because of him. Famous historian. In it he points out a theory among historians that the Peloponnesian war was one that the Athenians could lose, but they never really had a chance to win because winning would have required them to occupy the entire Greek peninsula. The best they could hope for was a result like had been worked out in the past for prolonged peace worked out in conference with the Lacadaemonians. I think the democrats are in a similar situation. They have lost middle America, both politically and geographically, possibly forever, as a result of the identity politics that were supposed to render them permanent hegemony via demography.
    Their strongholds are isolated to major cities and the coastlines, similar to Athens, and, like Athens they have become dependent on tribute they receive from vassal areas and imperialistic expansionism. They have spent lavishly on patronage so much so that there is no way to continue without wringing more out of those they have subjugated. Those they have patronized are looking for ways out. Their markets and infrastructure are increasingly run by metics (foreigners or illegal aliens) while natives look to go live elsewhere (think of many in the hoplite class who were exiles in the time of Pericles–there had to be hundreds, if not thousands like the “Old Oligarch”). They control the major ports and trade routes. They can never control the productive heartland, and they can never have the love of the people of that land.
    In Republics Ancient and Modern Paul Rahe makes the point that men will kill for money but they are only willing to die for love. It’s going to come down to how many mercenaries the left can hire, and are they willing to die fighting against men who love their country. You cannot maintain a long term occupation with a force of mercenaries.
    Of course, the long term effect of that war was the destruction of the polis as a form of government and the rise of Alexandrian Hellenism. Then Rome. I’m not looking that far ahead. I’m just saying that the left is asking for a conflict that they will ultimately regret asking for, if they even live that long.

    • A very interesting take Doc. Like all historical examples a number of interpretations are possible. If they mostly get to the same general place, and I think they might, then we have a real winner in explanatory power.

      We studied this issue in War College in the days of the Cold War. The obvious relevance was that, like Athens, we then dominated the maritime air/sea periphery of the EurAsian land mass and the USSR then had crushing superiority in conventional (i.e. non-nuclear) air/land battle capabilities like Sparta et al. The consensus solution at that time was that Athens et al lost because:
      – They failed to effectively address the Spartan alliance’s military power on land and instead adopted a largely defensive posture behind the walls of Athens. The Athenians could have created and landed forces by surprise anywhere to pry apart the Spartan alliance (e.g. by creating and sustaining a helot revolt – like the Brits did in Spain vs. Napoleon) but did not.
      – The Spartans DID counter the maritime strength of Athens and attack Athen’s strength (their tributary alliance structure), albeit haltingly at first. They learned and got better (with the help of the Persians) while the too-clever Athenians did not anticipate or effectively counter either course of action.
      – The politics (an oligarchy disguised as a democracy) of Athens led to strategically stupid, demagogically created, diversionary operations (the attack on Sicily) that wasted their strength: I.e. a failure of ‘maintenance of aim’.
      – The Athenian leadership cadre didn’t understand the consequences of the urban crowding that their defensive strategy entailed. They may not have been able to anticipate the plague that carried off so many of themselves, but they did hold too great an opinion of their political abilities to quell the ever-increasing popular unrest that WAS entirely foreseeable. That unrest lead to numerous unwise placatory measures such as the Sicilian expedition.

      Bottom Line for today following your analogy:
      – Our politics are not so different and It is darkly hilarious that the Cloud Folk confused Hillary with Pericles.
      – We must strike at their strategic vulnerability, i.e. their tributary structure, while building up our strategic capacity to neutralize their strength, i.e. the MSM and the 4th branch of government.
      – So President Trump should keep tweeting but only as a diversion, immediately fire all Obamoids possible even if it brings much of our beloved government to a halt (a feature not a bug IMHO) while creating a slush fund task force to keep the enemy off balance.

      • “Tributary structure”=slush funds. That is the source of their strength and it is their oxygen. Cut off the funds and fire the Obama functionaries in government.

        WWAJ(Andrew Jackson)D?

      • All pretty close to what I was thinking. I look at the Cold War differently. there were two wars going on. Ours against the communists, and the one of more traditional nationalist Russia against the communists. Russia and the West won. The communists lost. That’s why (((they))) are so upset.

  11. And another thing. Obama couldn’t remove his own head from his ass without 64 Polish light bulb installers. He doesn’t plan or lead the dump Trump movement. He can’t do anything that doesn’t require a teleprompter. When I hear someone imbue Obama with the criminal mastermind mystique I have to laugh. Remember what he was doing during the Libyan embassy disaster? Nothing.

    • Sure he’s taking orders, because he’s shown he can get results. Just not the results you want or expect.

    • No Mr. Cracker. Obama was not doing nothing. He was supporting his movement of weapons to his Muslim friends via connections in Libya using Embassy contacts, even if it meant “sacrificing” a few lives along the way. He is a socialist, Muslim scumbag that was sold as an American blackman who would be the first black to be President. What we got was a complete fabrication. Even in his eighth year, people kept asking “Why would an American President do these things?” and I had to laugh to myself saying “even after all this time, these idiots still don’t get it!” He was never there to be an American President. He was there to be a manipulator and gatekeeper for all manner of infestation of our government institutitions and country.

      So you may thing he was doing “nothing” but he was doing the job he was installed to do. It just wasn’t the job most people thought he should be doing. They still don’t get it.

      • Mr. Cracker? That’s Mr. Honky to you. No, what I was referring to was not the events that led up to the fiasco but what he was doing the night of the Benghazi disaster. There is one picture of him sitting in the situation room with some of his minions, but his posture shows him completely uninvolved. In fact, his picture looks photoshopped because of his size relative to everyone else. His Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta said he was not in the situation room. He also was not even active the night bin Laden was killed. He was playing cards with (his lover?) Reggie Love. Then his handlers had others float the “disrespectful video” narrative because Obama doesn’t even lie convincingly.

        As far as Obama being responsible for the weapons movement to his Muslim friends, Obama is too stupid to do anything other than what he is told. Another reason to ignore this “Obama is masterminding the Dump Trump movement”. This idiot has to have someone else take a dump for him.

        • Agreed Mr. Salty. He was but a figurehead, an empty suit. But under his watch a lot of bad stuff happened that needs fixing now. And fighting back because they, the Left have not quit.

          • And just to make sure you know, Mr Anon White Man, I am just poking fun at you and your handle. All in jest. We are in agreement on Obozo, a worthless POS if ever there was one.

        • “his posture shows him completely uninvolved”
          Yup. According to White House insiders, he spent a lot of time upstairs in the living quarters watching ESPN. He’s pretty much uninterested in any of the REAL work a president is supposed to do — and that Donald Trump, in stark contrast, actually is good at, and enjoys. Obama’s ears only perk up and his blood only gets circulating when he gets to rile up a bunch of adoring leftists. At THAT, he excels. It’s what juices him. I suspect he is more engaged and motivated now in his new job as Hellraiser-in-Chief than he ever was when he was in the Oval Office.

      • I totally agree, LetsPlay. Obama may be really lacking in the skills that a competent executive needs in his or her skill set. But Obama is very, very good at Alinskyite agitating. When he was a community organizer (disorganizer) in Chicago, he got rave reviews from other Alinskyites. He is a dangerous man.

  12. I can’t believe that anyone thinks for one moment that Trump will be “forced” to resign. Sure, the fag left will wet themselves with fear that he is going to enslave everyone that is not a White male, but c’mon. The RINO’s won’t do anything except provide lip service. Why? Because the effect on the economy. Sessions as well. Without the RINO’s the dumbocrats don’t have the numbers. Tump seemed to back down with Flynn. He may have. He may have had another strategy in mind. But, if Sessions is forced out, somehow the Lugenpresse will have all of its power back. In spades. Trump can’t let this happen if for no other reason than for the sake of his own ego.

    • It’s bizarre, but you would be surprised how invested a remarkable number of otherwise high functioning people are in your first point. And in a truly unhealthy way. Now that is the NYC metro area view. But would not be surprised to see a mass decompensation occur when it becomes obvious that is not going to happen. Hopefully, all they do is harm themselves. But you never know.

  13. What you are describing is meme warfare and a deliberate psyops campaign intended to undermine the opposition (real people with real guns). The Left knows that it cannot win a hot war and therefore, of necessity, must resort to other means in order to prevail in any future existential conflict. They are banking on the strategy of using memetic infection as a tool to induce voluntary disarmament and conformity with their ideology. That is why Global Warming is being pitched as a neo-religion.

    • Yup- outmanned and outgunned yet still Grim and Determined. They’ll use different strategies because they must; and they mean to win.

  14. This is a coup in the informational domain. Which is good because it shows that they haven’t yet decided to use force or are just too afraid (just as likely don’t understand how) to apply force.

    Today’s post ties in very nicely with yesterday’s. I had some friends in the litigation support business and networked with them to interview the owner of a firm for a school project. He had outsourced his manual data entry to the Philippines. I asked him, “why not China or India?” His answer was that besides the fact that there weren’t a lot of really good English speakers in China, both countries were just too damn corrupt.

    The internet has opened the door — hell it’s ripped it off the hinges — to all of these really corrupt cultures that don’t fit well with ours. Their practices are corrupting our businesses and our politicians . The reality is that they don’t have to live next to you to influence you. Like you said Z, they are leaving you messages every day.

  15. When Al Franken claims to have been ‘Elected’ by the voters of his state, legally; he’s lying.
    The type of blatant vote fraud that put an idiot such as Franken in the US Senate and the role AG Jeff Sessions will have in rooting it out and prosecuting the guilty explains the targeting of Sessions by worried Democrats.

    The three angles of attack on the Progressives must be; Education, The Media and Vote Fraud. Betsy DeVor has education, President Trump is doing a magnificent job of letting the air out of the media balloon and AG Sessions needs to get past this Russian nonsense and start putting the people behind voter fraud in prison.

    • Move quickly, hit them where it matters to them, and hit them hard. Liberalism is a “slush fund” form of governance. Eliminate the slush funds, and they got nuttin. The slush funds pay for all the rest of it. Like Daddy cutting off the allowance to a drunkard.

    • This is why the Left wants to get rid of Sessions, as he can derail the entire Leftist machine by letting states do VoterID and investigate for voter fraud not to mention investigating all those intel leaks which can and will land anyone caught doing it a 10-25 year stint in federal prison.

      VoterID alone can be a game changer. This is why liberals always freak out about it. Remember the more they scream about someone the bigger the threat he is.

      • Would love to see it. Like the Soros hires who busted up things and people at the Inauguration, “I was following well-established limits of destruction, assault, and mayhem (which means you don’t actually kill anyone), and now I am looking at ten years”. Flood the zone with crackdowns on everything. The Left will claim they are being rounded up en masse, but actually they will be called to account for breaking the law. En masse. Because no one on their side obeys anything any more, it is part of their zeitgeist.

      • Truth is slush funds cut both sides of the aisle. But cleaning it all up is good for the country period.

        As for reasons for attacks on Sessions, Voter Fraud investigations is one, protecting the Clintons is another (yes they lost but a lot of people still owe them), and don’t forget Lolita Island and Pizzagate. Nobody seems to want to talk about that one! And those are all in Sessions wheelhouse! Let’s loose the hounds!!!

  16. Hard to know what to make of the recent serial media sh*t storm in the Accela Corridor teapot. Our perspicacious proprietor points out the obvious confluence of interest between the Social Media Mafia, which need clicks to keep afloat the insiders’ stock options and the DNC-MSM complex which needs continuous agita to mulct their moon-bats and to put on a continuous threat display so as to intimidate the GOPe from touching their NGO-centered cash machine. The big uncertainty is, “Can this possibly work_?”.

    Sadly, it did work on both levels against President W as the breaking DOJ slush fund story shows. To nobody’s surprise use of these funds to oil the NGO jobs program for under-qualified Cloud spawn ramped up rapidly under Clinton I. The surprise is that under W they did not go down. They just remained level: I.e. a drastic Washington Cut. Apparently W through he’d be given credit for forbearance: Yet another unforced strategic error.

    That the DOJ slush fund ramped up even further under The Malignant Mulatto is also no surprise. It’s The Chicago Way, after all. (But the DC version lacks the semi-discipline of the old Daley machine. Honest Graft: The you only had to pay one guy one time.)

    Another hypothesis: They’re trying to do to Trump what he did to them: Keep him off balance by changing the story faster than his administration (now that he’s encumbered by one) can react.

    • Cut off all the slush funds immediately. Make them beg for the money and, in the process, demonstrate how much was spread around for how long, and what it went for. It’s a win-win. If they slink away, problem solved. If they raise a fuss, let people see what has been going on. There is no way to lose by doing this, and it is the right thing to do in the first place.

  17. My father owns a small business and he has an outside contractor whose sole job is to manipulate google in the favor of the business.

    Also, #gamergate. I play geek games(Dungeons and Dragons, etc) with my sister’s 19 year old son and his friends. They are all partially redpilled, I wouldn’t call them Trump voters, but when I ridicule Social Justice Warriors it’s clear they hate them almost as much as I do.

  18. Trump’s people need to rev up the “screw you” attitude. It is what got the Donald elected. Do it the Breitbart way, when the conversation comes up, be it Sessions, Flynn, recusal, whatever, respond with “So?”.

    It worked wonders with my looney in-laws, it stopped them in their tracks.

  19. Russians Hacking. Sure. That’s the ticket.

    In the meantime, the half-black POS Hussein sets up a shadow government a few blocks from 1600 with the Iranian agent and slumlord Jarrett in tow (and in residence) with the racist perjurer Holder proclaiming “Ready to Roll” in an effort to bring down a duly elected president by any means they can, along with an army of  30,000 OFA useful AstroTurf idiots salted across our land.

    When all the smoke clears from this Sessions debacle I pray Trump unleashes him to nail Chocolate Jesus and his cohorts to a tree.

    And then goes after the Klinton Krime family full fuckin’ bore. 

    BTW, speaking of Russians, Hussein Hitlery and treason, read this one. Things that make you go hummmm…..

    http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3507/Ka-Boom-Putin-Barack-and-Hillarys-Skolkovo.aspx

    • Yes, Obama is now a criminal mastermind and his residence has become the nexus of a coup-in-waiting Shadow Government.

      Get a grip, dude.

      • No, he just wants to sell Girl Scout cookies, it’s not like he spent his entire administration placing moles and organizing, nosirree.

      • King George: appropriate screen name.

        Think we kicked your ass about 2 1/2 centuries ago.

        That’s what a dismissive posture gets you.

      • No one has ever claimed Obozo a “mastermind” but he is a community organizer supported by an army of likeminded people. As for being the nexus, well, not necessarily him, but his aim is to continue his original work.

        Here is a quote from a book about Obama:

        “Such radical change cannot be accomplished while Americans are calm, happy, content, and grateful for their blessings. Citizens must be unhappy and stressed-out. Indeed, widespread popular discontent has always been the required fuel for the leftist transformational engine. Just reading a few pages into Saul Alinsky’s leftist playbook, Rules for Radicals, one encounters repeated confirmation that the very heart of radical “change” is keeping the populace angry, encouraging their grievances, stoking their resentments, and making sure they are continually upset. That is the primary psychological dynamic of “community organizing” – and since 2009 America has been led by a community organizer in chief and longtime master practitioner and instructor in Alinsky’s Far-Left agitation methods.”

        Kupelian, David. The Snapping of the American Mind: Healing a Nation Broken by a Lawless Government and Godless Culture (Kindle Locations 152-157). WND Books. Kindle Edition.

        • I just went to Amazon to order that book! Kupelian is a national treasure. His “How Evil Works” is one of my top ten books of the last few years. Thank you for informing us of this latest one, can’t wait to read it!

    • What a brilliant plan! Make *Obama* the leader of “the resistance” aiming to de-elect the American president! This is the man who presided over the utter slaughter of the Democrat Party at every level of government higher than municipal. If the Democrats had any sense, they’d be RUNNING from this guy, not pinning their hopes on the laziest, stupidest phony in the party.

    • To go along with all those 30,000 or more army of the imported enemy types you mention, I still have not heard a single word about all the weapons and ammo purchased by the many departments and agencies of the government. Where is the accounting on just what Obozo purchased?

      Where is that s&*t now? My bet is it probably wound up close to where he placed all those “salted” domestic enemies across our land. Defanging these departments or at least reporting to the American people about this should be at the top of the list of the new cabinet secretaries. This is very worrisome.

      • A very important and overlooked point. I am sure Trump’s team is aware of the forces arrayed against them and precisely this weapons issue. I sense battle space preparation going on, and one weekend all the computers will be seized, the locks will be changed, and 1/3 of DC will be out of a job come the next Monday. One can hope.

      • I’m reminded of the autumn of 1860, when (Democrat) Secretary of War John B. Floyd sent all kinds of weaponry to the Southern states….

  20. It’s not going to change the dynamic. People have ossified into their positions, and they’re not going to move. That plays to Trump’s advantage because this “The Russians are Coming!” stuff is a 24/7 scream-fest of insanity. That is not something which can be sustained.

    I do think a way for the Trump folks to combat it is with humor. Just poke fun at it.

    In the meantime, Trump’s cabinet is getting approved. Perry got confirmed yesterday with 62 votes. The reason the Democrats and the Media are creating this sh**storm is because it is their last remaining weapon. They don’t have the votes. They lack anything resembling broad, public, support. They have to pay people to show up for them, and increasingly are using silly antics (like the Broads in White at the speech the other night). They are in such bad shape that they had to put a nearly-dead former governor on the air to “rebut” an excellent Trump speech. And by “rebut”, I mean “admit on live TV that Obamacare has failed and that things are a mess”.

    That guy didn’t get the short straw because they wanted a nobody. That guy got the short straw because nobody else would do it. There aren’t any credible, young, elected, Democrats who want to be seen on TV opposing Trump. They are in deep trouble in 2018, particularly if Trump continues to keep his promises.

    • My initial reaction was, times awastin’ just declare war already with these fruitcakes. But I think you are right. Don’t back down, be serious about governing, point out with humor the insanity of this crew, and let Obama become a madman roaming the halls of his Kalorama manse. Tim

      • I don’t think you declare war on them. What you do is go to war with them covertly. A major weapon Trump has is his ability to define who gets a security clearance, and the classification of materials produced by the Executive Branch. He could slit a lot of throats without ever opening himself up to a court fight.

        He can also write an executive order mandating that government departments under-spend their annual budgets by 25%.

        • Hokkoda, I can only hope that there are people in the Trump Administration who are thinking of these things. But on the chance that they’re not, would you please go to whitehouse.gov, click on the “Get in touch” link at the top right of the page, and suggest these things. These are really great ideas you have, and we need to be sure that the administration hears about them! It would be awful if these things don’t get done just because nobody in a position of power has actually thought of them yet. I’m dead serious. You have a civic responsibility to share these ideas with the people who need them.

  21. This whole Russia thing was the fruit of the poisonous tree legal metaphor applied to society.
    Just like juries discard evidence obtained illegally, so too had the media to discard those mails.

    And because it worked so well, they are harping on it, of course the red cyber army is marching!

  22. Obama and the Cult groveled to Russia for eight years, but now they want us to believe that Russia is the great Satan and Trump is his right hand man. It is the ultimate fake news story meant to bring Trump down. No one believes them, not even the dumbest college student. They don’t even believe it themselves. They know it’s a lie, and this makes them evil. Trump has to get into attack mode. I’m praying that he does soon.

    • I’m suspecting that they are figuring that this will be over quick and will have added political capital. The other thing that’s happening is that the summer soldiers on the right are being smoked out. These people will be wearing targets on their backs for the remaining part of their political careers.

      • Trump is fighting back. See today’s headlines where he accuses Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower and demands investigations of Pelosi and Schumer. Until now, no one has ever fought back at the Cult and Big Media as hard and as viciously as Trump. GO DONALD! It may take a while, but you (we) will win because your political enemies are cowards, babies who have never been in a real fight in their lives and will eventually go home crying to mommy.

        • I hope you’re right. Unfortunately, I think we should never, ever underestimate how vicious these people are. One look at the Bolshevik Revolution, the French Revolution, Pol Pot’s killing fields, Castro’s execution squads, etc., etc., should show you that they can be anything BUT harmless crybabies. When the right leader comes along and harnesses all that incoherent rage, they quickly turn, at the leader’s command, into ruthless killers.

  23. “What may push everyone over the edge is the mother of all fake news stories, the entirely fictional Russian Hacking™ scandal. There is nothing about this that passes the laugh test.”

    This whole thing with Russia is hysteria but there are a lot of people who buy it. Every person I know who leans left in any minor way seems either deeply invested in this or believe that its true to some extent. Its beyond irritating; its maddening because its so obviously not just a lie but a very badly told one.

    There is a danger for the right to imagine that just because media and the left are falling apart, that they have no influence or effect whatsoever. Most people still get news the old fashioned way (including Trump; he uses Twitter to his advantage but that seems to be a result of his having been in the TV business, reports tend to imply that for news he just plain reads the newspapers, which to be honest is still a thing in NYC mainly as a relic of pre-Internet and pre-Smartphone subway commuting) and even if this Russia stuff is a political thrust to create a panic, it can have an impact.

    • The Left has always been conspiratorial. That’s in part due to the natural paranoia that is part and parcel with hive mindedness. It’s also due to the fact that the Left is endlessly scheming to get around whatever obstacles lie between them and their desired goal. They just assume everyone else is scheming too.

      The things different now are a) the willingness of the Left to embrace batshit crazy nonsense like this Russia stuff and b) the growing number of mostly young people to push back just as hard on social media. In the old days, the Left could push the narrative gently as they had no resistance. Now that they are facing pushback, they are going full lunatic.

      How this plays out is unknown. Maybe the Left nakedly embraces their authoritarian instincts and we get a coup. I would not be shocked to wake up tomorrow and learn that Trump was removed from office and replaced by Paul Ryan. I’m not predicting it, but I’m open to anything now. I’ve never seen it this crazy.

      • Batshit crazy indeed. Here’s a little game to play. Watch any of these people (Schumer, Pelosi, Franken, even the ex-Kentucky governor doing his rebuttal thing, Paul Krugman, and any number of MSM media people), and watch them with the sound off. It will creep you out. I used to do this with Obama and Hillary, but the disease has spread to all these other people. Do it with Trump and his crew, and you see normal people speaking, even though you cannot hear them.

        Someone recently posted the KY ex-governor’s rebuttal screen shot next to a photo of the wacky Heaven’s Gate guy. Twins.

      • So, the Spanish Civil War Scenario. Nobodyj expects the Spanish Civil War Scenario_!

        • It may boil down to having to engage in violence and whether people have the stomach for it. I’m thinking the average Joe talks big, but when it comes time to take his AR to city hall or the statehouse he decides to go hunting on the back forty instead. This is what the dems are counting on. Then they get to go full on commie.

      • “a) the willingness of the Left to embrace batshit crazy nonsense like this Russia stuff”

        Is it really so crazy that they are willing to accept it? The accusations are nuts but the willingness to think it isn’t as nuts given that what these people are looking at is the aftermath of a failed messianic movement. The left literally sold Obama as a messiah who would change everything forever; he was supposed to be the final culmination of the entire left wing drift since 1991, the person who would forever solidify everything the left created and gained in the last generation. And instead all that’s happened is that everyone normal (or if you prefer anyone who already has a religion/worldview/life and doesn’t need a new one to fill some empty void in their hearts) turned away from him as fast as they could for what you could say was probably the last person on earth anyone would expect them to turn to.

        ” In the old days, the Left could push the narrative gently as they had no resistance. Now that they are facing pushback, they are going full lunatic.”

        The sad thing is that none of these “geniuses” trying to push for war with Russia (because if what they say happened is true, its a step in the direction to all-out to war after all) really understand what they are doing. Its just words in the media to bring down Trump. And once thats done, everything can be forgotten. Thats just how status games in the academy or management can go but that as we all know isn’t how it works in the real world. They don’t even realize what they are doing is crazy. The problem we ultimately have isn’t so much that they’ve become lunatics as much as it is that are, to paraphrase what that Obama official called the journalists he rolled over to sell the Iran deal, a bunch of dim, ignorant 27 years olds.

    • “Its beyond irritating; its maddening”

      Vox Day likes to point out that emotional pain is one of the few things that SJWs are capable of understanding. There’s a lot of truth to his observation. SJWs will push this Russia nonsense even if they don’t believe it (and most of them do) themselves simply to annoy their enemies.

      I’ve recently gotten to the point where I’ve stopped trying to debate anyone on the left, but I haven’t stopped insulting them on social media. I think it’s best to never show them your anger and to project an attitude where you seem generally amused and occasionally disgusted. Debating an SJW about Russia only legitimizes their delusions. It’s best just to call them hysterical, deranged, stupid, etc, but again, to not show your anger while doing so. It’s also effective to insult the masculinity of male SJWs: “I can understand why hysterical women with personality disorders are freaking out over the fake news about Trump and Russia, but frankly, I’m embarrassed for men who are. They all seem like they’re suffering from low-T.”

      • “I’ve recently gotten to the point where I’ve stopped trying to debate anyone on the left, but I haven’t stopped insulting them on social media.”

        Outside of a relative or two I don’t bother at all with the left; their behavior is at best childish. They lost one election after fifteen to twenty five years of mostly success and suddenly the sky is falling. The best meme I’ve seen recently on dealing with leftists goes something like:

        Her: “I identify as non-binary fluid pan sexual.”
        Him: (Trying to think of something to impress her) I’m mentally ill too.”

    • It serves little purpose but my own satisfaction, but I find it amusing to reply to this by welcoming this new progressive worry about the Russian threat and accepting their unoffered apology for the gross failures of their ancestors in this area.

    • The whole Russian thing was initially a cover for Hillary to persuade all her “investors” not to lope her head off or take out her only child due to her election loss.

      But the community organizers realized this had stronger “legs” and have kept the story going and are attaching it to anything affiliated with the Trump administration.

      Just a bunch of sorry ass losers. Keep ignoring their accusation and keep calling them liars. Best strategy going.

    • I tend to agree with your analysis Brooklyn with one caveat: I wouldn’t say it’s the “Left” that buys the new McCarthyism, it’s the status quo Democratic Party and its supporters . The Intercept, Noam Chomsky, and others on what might be called the far left are hammering hard on the Russian hacking “news” with some very good arguments about why it looks and smells fake. At least on that count, a segment of the “left” are allies. It is the Clinton wing of the Democratic party (to which the main-stream press mostly belongs) and its supporters who created and are perpetuating the Russian hacking story, not necessarily “the left.”
      Most of the mainstream Democrats and their mouthpieces still run the show and I don’t buy it for a minute that the party has been “decimated.” They are way too powerful and before you know it, they are going to rise from their ashes.Part and parcel of their narrative is that anyone who doesn’t believe the Russian hacking meme is a wingnut, a conspiracy nut, a blind Trump supporter, whatever. That narrative, I sadly believe, will prevail until historians many years from now tear it apart.
      Yes, it’s all fake but I don’t understand how this is “going to end poorly” [for those who created and are perpetuating the Russian fake news] and I wonder why that is the conclusion of the essay. This country has been governed by propaganda since the days of Edward Bernays. Is the “truth” really going to be exposed? That is laughable. But boy, do I hope I am wrong.
      And then there’s the Deep State………

      • With you on the demographics. Living behind enemy lines in NY, what is different is the number of otherwise sober minded, but left leaning people that have gone absolutely full rabid cat on anything related to Trump. I think the “end badly” part comes from the extraordinary level of emotional investment I’m seeing first hand in all this being true and Trump being forced out of office. Popping that fantasy world is where things may start to get froggy.

  24. Tangential to the Sessions fiasco, my take on this is that Sessions needs to resign–not because he did anything wrong but because this episode revealed that Sessions is not the fighter that Trump needs in the AG position to make headway in cleaning up the swamp in Washington, which starts by cleaning up the Justice Department. Sessions folded like a cheap suit in response to pretty mild manufactured outrage from Schumer, Pelosi, and the MSM over events that, even if completely true, were utterly insignificant. His hasty decision to recuse himself from any investigation into Russian contacts only lends credibility to these fabrications.

    The political left has Sessions under their thumb now. He is now under investigation by the very bureaucracy he is charged with leading. He cannot reform the Department while he’s under investigation, as any reforms he proposes will be swept into allegations that he’s attempting to stifle the investigation.

    Sessions stepped right into the trap the Democrats laid for him, and I don’t see that he has a way out. For the good of the Administration he needs to resign. Bring on AG Trey Gowdy?

    • Nah, he “recused” himself from a nowhere investigation about nothing. By “recusing” himself, he no longer has to answer any questions about it, and can continue to focus on enforcing the border.

      “What? You want me to “recuse” myself from an investigation that would be an utter waste of my time and that isn’t going to uncover anything? Ummmm…OKAY!!! :-)”

      • With respect, by recusing himself from the investigation Sessions has given up any opportunity to manage an investigation in the DoJ, including the duration, scope, budget, and personnel. Democrats are calling for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor, and RINOs like Lindsay Graham and even Darrell Issa are joining the chorus. Session’s decision to recuse is a blatant admission that the AG can’t lead a department investigation in which the AG is a subject. After making this admission, Sessions has no viable grounds on which to refuse to appoint a Special Prosecutor.

        I was aghast when I watched the Sessions press conference. Sessions should have stood his ground and told Schumer, et al., to go f*ck themselves. Instead, he folded–**against the request of the White House Counsel**. Too many years of Senate Comity has clouded his judgment, I think.

        You are deluding yourself if you think Sessions can keep this bogus investigation from spiraling out of control. Sessions needs to resign.

        • He can still control those things simply by diverting DOJ resources to higher priority tasks – like border enforcement and related prosecutions.

          Remember, there is not a “right / left” division in Washington. You cannot automatically assume that because they have an (R) next to their name, that they’re on “our side”. The new political alignment in the country is between the Government Party and the American Party. The Government Party is mainly the “cloud people” Zman writes about, and people who define themselves as progs/liberals. But the Government Party includes one hell of a lot of people who make their living off of Government (regardless of party or ideological affiliation), are part of Conservative, Inc., and who think the United States of America’s time has passed, and we are to be governed as a borderless, Regional Trade Zone 6, headquartered in Brussels.

          The Democrats in D.C. are just using this time while Trump’s cabinet gets up to speed (they’ve dragged it out awhile) to create some smoke and fog.

          I agree that Sessions shouldn’t have recused himself, but I also think it’s a net positive because it allows him to focus on more important things. Not an investigation of Harvey the Rabbit.

          • I’m glad we have some common ground that Sessions should not have recused himself.

            As to your assertion that Sessions can still control the investigation by diverting DOJ resources: he absolutely cannot. Sessions has recused himself. All decisions relating to this investigation will be made by Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, an Obama appointee.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Boente

            If Boente recommends a Special Prosecutor, Sessions will be forced to appoint one. He can’t override Boente’s decision after recusing himself.

            It’s important to remember that the management layer of the DoJ is, for all intents and purposes, still the Obama DoJ. The Trump Administration has not had time yet to replace the management-level, political appointees at the DoJ.

          • The president has the final word on special prosecutor appointment iirc. Trump can simply demand that Boente reveal what evidence he has decided deserves such treatment and make the decision himself.

          • You do not recall correctly. The President has no authority over Special Prosecutors (which are now referred to as Independent Counsel). The whole point of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 was to remove presidential authority to fire or curtail prosecutors investigating the executive branch. It was passed in response to the Saturday Night Massacre. (Doesn’t anyone here remember Watergate? Nixon?). That Act lapsed in 1999, but the DoJ simply implemented regulations that mirror the Act. Nifty trick.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_the_Independent_Counsel

            To restate: Jeff Session’s decision to recuse himself from any role in investigations between the Trump Campaign and the Russians has placed the SOLE decision making authority for appointing a Special Prosecutor (aka Independent Counsel) into the hands of Dana Boente, an Obama Appointee. This is why the White House Counsel requested (vigorously) that Sessions NOT recuse himself.

          • Obama pre-rigged all this at the Justice Department. The person in charge in the absence of Sessions was hand-picked by Obama. I think everything that’s unfolding now was all planned ahead of time, before Obama left office.
            https://tinyurl.com/h8em5qr

          • Yeah right. Like Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch gave a crap about the rule of law or the Constitution. Top law enforcers my ass! No one should bow or even acknowledge the BS coming out of the losers. Pissants.

          • I agree. With two cabinet appointees still awaiting approval, and one lost already to this stupid backstabbing, I don’t see why the Trump admin would give any credence to the Dem’s, Libs, or MSM. Fuck’em all. Talk about double standards with the likes of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, Lois Lerner, and so many others including outright commies like Van Jones. Are you kidding me? Anyone takes these attacks seriously? I call BS!

      • Unless your counterattack is ready and you are withdrawing to over extend him so you can destroy him in your kill sack.

        • Well, I hope so. Bush apologists were forever asserting that his serial losses were really fiendishly clever “rope-a-dope” maneuvers, and we’d see him triumphant any day now. All I ever saw was the dope wrapping the rope around his own neck, so I’ve become skeptical when I’m told that what looks like a loss isn’t really a loss.

    • I still haven’t decided if you’re right about Sessions resigning but he didn’t should not have recused himself from any DOJ investigation. That has fed the frenzy on the Left (CNN couldn’t wait to spend a solid hour last night talking about his recusal and the the “likely” scenarios that could lead to his resignation if more dirt can be manufactured. Bottom line: he should have told the Dems to go f&*k themselves. And the Republicans in Congress making anti-Russian, “Look at me I’m a patriot” noises need to focus on party solidarity in the face of a clear offensive by the liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic Party to undermine anything and everything the Republicans plan to do the next two-eight years.

    • I like your comment but completely disagree with you about Trey Gowdy. He’s folded before, too. Apparently, nearly everyone in Washington is being blackmailed one way or another, and can be made to do whatever The Powers That Be demand. Trump seems to be the only who’s not blackmailable. I hope and pray that there are others, and that Trump finds them and appoints them. Quickly.

  25. In regard to the A.G;. Do you remember the hue and cry when the past A.G,. Eric Holder, was held in criminal contempt of congress? Neither do I. Schumer, Pelosi, Perez, Ellison, Franken..How can this party even hope to survive as a national party. If they do, how can we the people hope to survive.

  26. In the immortal words of the great philospher and poet Gordon Sumner written during the waning days of the Cold War:

    We share the same biology, regardless of ideology.
    But what might save us, me and you,
    Is if the Russians love their children too

    The Democrats should heed these wise words.

    • The Rove Republicans had better do so as well, because THEY are every bit as foul as Schumer and Pelosi and the rest.

      Songbird, Lyin’ Ryan, Post Turtle, Marco!, Grahamnesty, every single one of them…

  27. That Zerohedge article should make everyone’s eyes widen. While lots of goofy stuff comes out of there, that piece looks rock solid. Clickfarming looks like the only explanation. Then again, Walter Duranty’s noxious deceit hiding the USSR’s industrialized famine was over 50 years ago at the NYT. Think how much fake news we swallowed all those decades.

  28. I’m way past the point of disbelief with this story. We are supposed to be outraged that a sitting U.S. Senator has had contact with the Russian Ambassador? Isn’t that part of both job descriptions?

    They have jumped the shark with stories that so transparently biased and fake that they are destroying the media brands.

    • One wonders if this is a turning point. Will Trump’s own team surrender this soon? The Morlocks already have Flynn’s scalp, and if they get Sessions as well, we’re possibly returning to Cuck status quo.

      It was fun while it lasted; but I often succumb to pessimism.

      • I assume Flynn went because Trump wanted him to go, perhaps somewhat at the behest of Pence. It was unwise to give the Dems the impression that they were responsible for the blood in the water, but it’s not as if Flynn had much of a constituency. Sessions is a different matter.

      • Pretty sure Flynn was a trap set by Trump. If I’m right, Flynn will be back in the admin in some kind of capacity eventually.

        Sounds like Sessions might have been against Trump’s wishes… or perhaps that too was an intentional leak by Trump. I still have a lot of faith in Trump

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