Tag: Washington Post

But CNN Persisted

CNN isn’t backing off their claim that Michael Cohen can prove Trump complicity with the Trump Tower meeting.  This is despite the fact that Lanny Davis has recanted and backed off of the claim.  We reported earlier after Davis’s under-reported interview with Anderson Cooper that he basically went back on every claim he had previously made.

Davis reiterated to the Washington Post that his own claims were bogus.  But CNN is persisting in reporting that Cohen is ready to dish dirt on Trump.  CNN seems to be going the Dan Rather route of “It’s not proven, but we believe it in our hearts”. Possible things Cohen might know about?  There’s the Trump Tower meeting and potential interference through the DNC server hack, although Lanny Davis has now denied both.  There’s also an old report from the UK Daily Mail back in May that Cohen demanded money from Qatar for Trump.  But so far this seems to be tabloid gossip.

Lanny Davis says Cohen dirt oversold.  CNN still buying it.

Democrats know impeachment is out of grasp and have stopped running on it.  The economy is too good, and their evidence is too bad to actually think they could get 75 Senators to vote for impeachment.  But Democrats are promising endless probes and investigations if they take control of the House.  According to Bloomberg, Democrats have a long laundry list of taxpayer funded probes to hit Trump with in order to obstruct his agenda.  Still, Trump has weathered investigations through the first two years of his Presidency while still accomplishing major agenda items.  Voters will need to decide in November whether they want massive obstruction in the House or continued progress on the economy.

Democrats abandon impeachment, go for obstruction instead

Speaking of Trump accomplishments, stocks are through the roof again as the US and Mexico get closer to closing a new NAFTA deal.  Trump blew up the old NAFTA deal in an effort to secure something better for the United States.  He has accomplished this and North American trade is back on.  The Mexico NAFTA agreement should also bring Canada back into the mix.  This is a big victory for Trump’s foreign trade policy.

NAFTA 2.0 with Mexico coming back online

Confirmed: The Fix Was In

The Washington Post is reporting this morning that James Comey knew the Justice Department was protecting Hillary Clinton, drafted a letter exonerating her in early May, then gave immunity to her aides who subsequentially confessed to lying and destroying evidence.

A month later, after Comey wrote the exoneration letter, Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton privately where they “talked about wedding plans”. They didn’t. The fix was in. All they needed for the show was to have Hillary be interviewed by the FBI. Bill needed assurances that the Justice Department still had her back and that Comey had already chosen to exonerate her.

Five days later, Comey interviews Hillary Clinton, with her aides who had been granted immunity allowed in the room to serve as her lawyers.  Two days later, Comey goes public with his exoneration letter as though he had just come to that decision.

September 28, Comey tells Congress that he did not make his decision until after interviewing Hillary Clinton.  He states emphatically that he did not make the decision until after interviewing Hillary Clinton.

Here is the Washington Post timeline:

Early March – Comey receives information from Russian sources that the Justice Department is working to ensure Hillary Clinton won’t be prosecuted.  Loretta Lynch had also spoken to Comey and asked him to call the “investigation” a “matter” instead so as not to make it sound so bad.

(Sidebar: why would Russia know anything about the Justice Department’s relationship to Hillary Clinton?  Perhaps because of how the Uranium One deal was covered up?)

May 2 – Comey drafts the exoneration letter

May 3 – Paul Combetta, Clinton computer specialist, admits to lying to the the FBI about knowing the emails should have been preserved and deleting them anyway.  Combetta is given immunity because Comey, apparently, wanted to move up the line to get someone more important.  AFTER he had already written the exoneration letter.

May 5 – The media reports that there is little evidence Clinton committed a crime

May 16 – Comey sends the draft of his exoneration around to other members in the FBI.  This is before Cheryl Mills is interviewed.  Part of the deal to interview Cheryl Mills becomes immunity and the destruction of her laptop, which likely contained evidence.

June 27 – Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton meet privately on his jet.

July 2 – Hillary Clinton is interviewed by the FBI for 3 1/2 hours with her aides in the room serving as her lawyers.  The aides have immunity already.  They can confer and make sure they get their stories straight.

July 5 – Comey exonerates Hillary Clinton.

Anyone with any sense and understanding can clearly see the fix was in.  There was no way the Obama Justice Department was going to prosecute Hillary Clinton.  And Comey worked with the administration to make sure it never happened.  The investigation should be reopened, and prosecution of Comey, Lynch, the Clintons, Mills, Combetta, Abedeen, and Obama should be on the table for obstruction of justice and perjury.

Forget Russia, Let’s Talk About Germany

After Comey’s testimony, the Russia Trump collusion story has been downgraded to Birther level controversy.  Comey vindicated Trump, saying in fact that Trump was never even under investigation.  Comey has also said that Russia did not alter a single vote in the US election.  On the administration side, it seems as though the biggest issue is General Mike Flynn’s work with Russia and failure to disclose the payments he received. Yes Trump asked Comey to go easy on Flynn, but Trump also fired Flynn.

What did Russia do then?  Russia did not collude with the administration.  Russia did not change the votes.  They did not hack the electronic voting machines. Apparently it’s possible that Russia released Podesta’s emails, but the incriminating statements there came directly from Podesta and other DNC staffers.  At this point, it appears that Russia’s biggest sin was printing negative press and sometimes fake news about Hillary Clinton.

Russia did not print negative news about Hillary Clinton in order to elect Trump.  Unlike the Clinton’s campaign work to influence the GOP primary and make sure Trump won, Russia simply didn’t like Hillary Clinton.

Russia’s actions have been called an act of war.  Even some on the GOP side have called Russia’s actions an attempt to destroy our constitutional process and democracy.  Is this a valid accusation?  Does foreign media printing negative stories equate to election hacking?  Should we be sanctioning Russia because they printed negative stories about Hillary Clinton?

Let’s talk about Germany.  Harvard recently performed a study on various news outlets to see whether Trump was getting fair coverage.  The result is that Trump is getting more negative coverage than any of his predecessors.  Remember, negative press from foreign sources equals an act of war and destruction of our constitutional process.  So we should probably be concerned about Germany’s ARD news network’s 98% negative reporting rate on Trump.

Britain is another hacking nation that has declared war on the US through their media outlets.  Financial Times was negative about Trump 84% of the time, BBC 74% of the time.  When it comes to using media to influence US opinion, both Britain and Germany are just as guilty as Russia.

There’s one other problem worth mentioning.  The assault on the US and our constitutional processes is not being led by Russia or Germany.  It’s being led by the US. If unbalanced coverage and fake news equals everything the left and John McCain say it does, then we should be more concerned about CNN and NBC reporting negatively about Trump 93% of the time.  CBS was 91%, New York Times 87%, Washington Post 83%. Comey’s testimony discredited all of these US news outlets, forcing them to print retractions of fake news they had recently reported.

If the whole Russia thing boils down to their state media operations, I hope we can find a way to laugh at ourselves and move on with our lives. And to think, Obama kicked the Russian ambassadors out of our country over this.

Washington Post resorts to clickbait

It will be yuge.  In the era of fake news and hyperbole, Trump is only one of many offenders.  We live in an age where anyone can say anything and lay claim to credibility.  It works especially well if you use half the facts and flawed research.  That’s exactly what the Washington Post did when they declared that repealing Obamacare WILL kill more than 43,000 people a year.  Not “it may”, not even “experts suggest”.  It will kill them.  43,000 a year.  Poof.  Just like that.  Without even getting end of life counseling.

“…thousands of American lives that were previously protected by provisions of the Affordable Care Act are in danger” begins the article.  The claim is based on a study that says that for every 455 people put on Medicaid, one person a year lives who would have died otherwise.  Since correlation always means causation, the reasoning is sound.  It’s even more sound if you consider that there is absolutely no replacement for ACA.

Of course, that’s not true.  Republicans already have a replacement ready, and it keeps some key parts of ACA such as not being dropped for pre-existing conditions.  But here the article makes a strange argument.  Despite being obviously anti-Republican, the article notes that while it only takes 50 votes to repeal Obamacare, it would take 60 to pass a replacement.  I think the argument goes something like this: Republicans can repeal Obamacare easily, but in order to replace it and save 43,000 lives a year Democrats would have to not filibuster.  So perhaps the headline should have read “Democrat filibuster will kill 43,000 people”.

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time some wild eye, crazy hair person has claimed that repealing Obamacare equals mass murder.  Bernie Sanders used to say that without the ACA 36,000 people would die annually.  At the time he was given 4 Pinocchios by none other than the Washington Post.

Now? Apparently now Bernie’s prediction of 36,000 dead per year if Obamacare is repealed is “certainly well within the ballpark of scientific consensus”, according to the article.  Good night, and good luck.