Trump and his info warriors are prepping the FOX and conservative media information battlefield to prepare for Trump firing Rosenstein.
America is on the precipice of a major constitutional crisis. As I’ve said for months now, we are already sinking rapidly into an information void, where the American “news” environment has become a wasteland of partisan political SPIN. You can turn on the three major cable news channels and compare. While CNN and MSNBC preen about how FOX’s political reporting is just Trump propaganda (which it is), they fail to see that the “mainstream media” reporting is to a large degree the Democrat talking points or reliant on “unnamed sources”, who are highly likely Democrat politicians.
I don’t feel like rehashing all of this, so this post is going to be some points, then I have housework to do and I am learning how to make Amish knot rag rugs Made my first small rug a few days ago using old fabric from the 90s. The technique is simple, but as with most craft and needlework, I need to practice a lot more to get my knots a uniform size. My first rug is 24″ across:
1. Since Trump & his info warriors are poised for another major offensive, here’s a 2015 TPM editorial about Trump’s way of info war, worth reading: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-way-of-the-doofus-warrior
2. The past few days, on FOX, Twitter & across friendly conservative media, Trump and his info warriors are “prepping the information battlefield”, working to feed anger about Comey, the Clinton email investigation double standard, and obvious corruption in the Lynch DOJ.
3. No one on the Left has any organized defense against Trump’s info war offensives. Instead, they run the same losing defensive moves – hysterics, same failed spin messaging & “taking to the streets” with the far-left fringes screeching.
4. On the right, there’s still a very divided GOP, which benefits Trump, because there’s enough Trump mouthpieces in Congress to sabotage and slow down any orchestrated Republican effort to thwart Trump’s info war offensives.
5. And there’s enough anger among the right about the 2016 Clinton/DNC/Obama corruption using the Lynch DOJ and Comey’s “extremely careless” to temper Congressional Republicans from acting against Trump. They know Trump will hit the road with rallies to woo their constituents.
6. America is spinning itself into a constitutional crisis. SPIN info war is a larger threat to America than Trump, because the longer this 2016 info war drags on the deeper the information void becomes. We have all 3 major cable NEWS networks reporting vast amounts of SPIN as news.
7. This endless high-octane American SPIN info war escalates partisan anger, deepens divides & erodes our constitutional system, but it also is destroying America’s reputation in the international community. SPIN can lead us into both a constitutional & a national security crisis. Foreign leaders, both friends and adversaries, rely on American media to a very large degree to assess what is going on in America and also on the reliability of our American government. This endless 2016 information war continues to erode America’s credibility.
libertybelle diaries 
LB? Just asking your opinion/take:
You’ll recall the both of us having “some issues” where the purported experts were concerned and following somewhat later our ‘backs & forths’ me typing something elsewhere which royally, and on my part deservedly so, pissed you off?
You do Twitter LB whereas I don’t do Twitter – I have no idea what’s been the “consensus opinion” since, a couple Sundays ago a former FBI guy appeared on CNN’s (Brian Stelter host) Reliable Sources which, prompted me to forward to Mr. Stelter a link to a Pre-Elected-Trump post; That being John Schindler’s October 5th, 2016 post.
http://observer.com/2016/10/politicization-of-the-fbi-threatens-american-democracy/
I’m genuinely interested in whatever LB you have to offer on the subject matter of/on that link.
I trust “LB’s gut” for however you regard me presently.
Well, JK, I am not angry at you and when it comes to finding those golden kernels of information, well, you are one of the smartest “crows” I’ve ever known. I respect your opinions and take your input seriously.
The Schindler, who wrote that piece, quickly moved to sounding like a Keith Olbermann type and the #Resist on Twitter. This pre-election Schindler sounds nothing like the post-election Schindler. He was adamant that Americans had to stop Trump from being inaugurated and he has peddled endless “Trump-Russian collusion” stories, often claiming inside sources in the intel business and yet, so far nothing has stuck to Trump. I often think we all live in our own bubbles and Schindler being invested in the MSNBC crowd probably influenced his judgement.
Mueller may crack that egg and hatch some real live “Trump-Russian collusion”, but thus far, I haven’t seen it.
Twitter is useful only in that, by following 900 or so mostly journalists (mainstream, FOX, loopy left and conservative), some politicians and pundits, I can see spin cycles forming and identify new messaging attacks faster. When I first started studying spin messaging, in the early 90s, I did a lot of channel flipping between news networks and reading news, trying to identify the talking points messaging. The computer age led me to social media, unfortunately and I landed at the Excite message boards.
You aren’t missing anything on Twitter, because Trump has made tweeting a large part of presidential news reporting. My use of Twitter is purely, watching the info warriors in their playground and I guess the term is “trolling” by retweeting adding my comments. Since I have only 50 some followers, my footprint on Twitterdom is minuscule. For me, Twitter is just one more social media platform that I’ve traveled since 1998 & once this info war ends or moves to another platform – I will happily leave it behind. I am not there to “socialize”.
The Comey book launch seems designed to be part of an orchestrated effort among Comey, his legal friends, some media and political actors to take down Trump. He is a player in the scorched earth spin effort and since he’s courting Obama and Dems, trying to pay penance for reopening the Hillary investigation, aggressively trashing Trump and schmoozing with liberal media – it seems Comey has cast his fortunes with the forces working to takedown Trump. How this Comey book effort squares with his protestations about being impartial as he came to his “extremely careless” defense of Hillary, well, that will remain a puzzle beyond my ability.
Clapper and Brennan have been on TV constantly politicizing intelligence and working to take down Trump too. Online, numerous former Obama officials do the same thing, but even more concerning, is it seems likely that many of the sensational Trump bombshell stories, that fell apart quickly after lighting up a news cycle or two, smell like the sourcing was former Obama officials or Adam Schiff & friends.
Trump is crass and his spinners are loud and amateurish in their strident propaganda blitzes, but he’s only one side of this info war, which is easy to forget. Many of the worst mainstream media “journalists”, who have tirelessly worked to trash Trump have no self-awareness how biased and disgraceful much of their spinning efforts have been. Most would deny they spin, even as you can watch their retweet frenzies of “hot takes”, in real time, propel negative Trump news spin cycles and it’s obvious they did no independent investigation before retweeting. When many of these stories deflate and end up being not factual, they report, “oops, mistake, edited”, but they still continue with their retweeting habit undaunted, secure in their belief they are noble reporters of facts…
I know I am biased against Trump and I remind myself of that constantly. Every time he opens his mouth, I grit my teeth, expecting him to act like a total jerk, brag or say something about his job that rubs me the wrong way. It infuriates me that he is lazy and self-indulgent, doesn’t bother reading up on his own policies or the issues and operates like a puffed up, pampered Prince, not the President of the United States of America. However, I have never once said he should be impeached, because so far I haven’t seen any evidence that he has committed any high crimes or misdemeanors, as I understand the terms.
As to the politicizing the FBI, well, I agree that is a serious threat to American democracy, but at this point, with so many escalating domestic political issues stemming from the extremely corrupt 2016 election, I’m not sure how to rank them many days, except that I do believe that the escalating scorched earth SPIN info war that has been a “hot” war since 2015 and which the POTUS, politicians, pundits, news journalists and even the former FBI director, former CIA director and former director of national intelligence are actively engaged in, poses the greatest threat to our constitutional order, civil order and even national security. Our American leadership – seems more intent on winning this SPIN info war than they are about doing their jobs and abiding by the oaths they swore.
Quite a spectacle will unfold soon.
Thanks LB. As we’re both “concerned” (bit of an understatement I’m betting you agree – but I not wishing either of us get uhm … tagged as … I’ll stick with concerned) there’s the distinct and very real likelihood of some crisis – possibly Constitutional as you’ve all along “crowed” [inside joke to any who might wander onto this comment thread]
But the thing is for me at least is, I cannot wrap my head around that, the individual Trump is gonna be (History writers of the future? Pay attention!) anyway I can’t see Trump’s bearing the sole responsibility of whatever’s gonna surely happen.
I worry for our Republic LB (and you future Historians).
The fore fathers warned about this very thing. Unfortunately they were unable to foresee the disconnect of much of the citizenry.
JK, I haven’t even thought much about how history will record this time, because often I am not sure what the facts are about events, because the SPIN moves on to other topics and there are countless dangling “breaking news” level stories that waft off into the ether. For instance that Las Vegas shooting incident or take that it took about a year for us to find out that the Steele dossier was Clinton/DNC funded opposition research – real, Russian collusion, touting Russian sources close to the Kremlin, yet Comey didn’t inform Congress or the American people about that. Why? Then they tried to sell Steele as some super-spy and valuable FBI source… The guy was a retired spy for hire, who cultivated the Russian emigre peeps in Great Britain and ostensibly some of his old Russian sources in Russia. He claimed sources close to the Kremlin as bolstering the veracity There was never any way for the FBI to verify any of this crap that came from 2nd and 3rd party sources, that may or may not exist in Russia.
Here was a tweet from John Brennan this morning, responding to a Trump tweet:
John O. Brennan
Verified account
@JohnBrennan
Follow Follow @JohnBrennan
More John O. Brennan Retweeted Donald J. Trump
Your kakistocracy is collapsing after its lamentable journey. As the greatest Nation history has known, we have the opportunity to emerge from this nightmare stronger & more committed to ensuring a better life for all Americans, including those you have so tragically deceived.John O. Brennan added,
Donald J. Trump
Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and…..
10:39 AM – 13 Apr 2018
The Russians don’t have to work hard to make us look like a banana republic when we have leaders like this.
Up2L8, I agree, but the one thing many of our forefathers were not too keen on was the sanctification of majorities. They wrote safeguards into The Constitution, letting the House of Representatives be the voice of “the people”, the Senate the voice of the States (however the state governments wanted to select them) and with the President, they came up with the Electoral College. We are to a large extent ruled now by media mob rule, where orchestrated political SPIN blitzes and poll numbers, packaged and sold by media, control most of our elected leaders.