Everyone in the media is talking about John Brennan, who lost his security clearance this week. On the Trump side of the ledger, Brennan is an enemy of the people. On the other side, heâs Americaâs hero for talking truth to power.
Wrongo wonât shed any tears for Brennan.
Letâs go back in time: When Barack Obama became president, he tried to make Brennan Director of the CIA. But even Democrats in Congress were opposed to that, because, while serving under GW Bush, Brennan enabled the rendition of terror suspects to countries where they could be tortured. So, Obama made him Deputy National Security Advisor, where he created and managed Obamaâs âdrone killâ list.
After Obama’s reelection, Brennan was named CIA director. In that role, he ordered the CIA to spy on the Senate Intelligence Committee that was at the time, investigating CIA torture. While under oath, he lied to Congress, denying it. When it was proven that the CIA did in fact spy on Congress, he had to apologize. At the time, a WaPo editorial said: Obama should fire John Brennan, but nobody remembers any of this today.
Brennan is a hot, steaming pile of CIA shit. But, since he recognized the threat that Trump represents, suddenly we should make him Americaâs sweetheart? Brennan will have a long career, now that Trump has elevated him to be his foil. We shouldnât allow Brennan to be the face of the resistance to Trump. Brennanâs a corrupt and terribly flawed messenger.
While Trump and Truth both contain 5 letters of the alphabet, they have never met:
A cartoon from the past reminds us that the priest pedophilia never ends:
After all, you canât molest the unborn:
Who says Trump canât unite America?
These two richly deserve being each otherâs enemy:
If you attend a demonstration, and the person marching beside you throws a rock, are you responsible for the damage? According to prosecutors at the DOJâs Washington, DC office, the answer is yes, you are.
On January 20, 2017, 230 people were arrested in Washington, DC while protesting Donald Trumpâs inauguration. More than 200 faced felony charges under a federal riot statute. A small group of defendants were acquitted, and in January, prosecutors dropped charges against 129 people. However, 59 people still are charged with crimes.
Rolling Stone gives some background: (brackets by Wrongo)
Trump’s inauguration on January 20th, 2017 drew a number of protests…but the “anti-capitalist and anti-fascist march,” now widely referred to as “J20” (a reference to the date of the protest) garnered the most attention. The protesters were primarily dressed in black…Protesters and others there to report on or observe the protest left DC’s Logan Circle as the inauguration ceremony began, and soon thereafter, several individuals broke off from the larger black-clad group and smashed the windows of a several storefronts. [And a limousine]
In response to the destruction of property, DC police arrested 230 people. Six went to trial and were acquitted in December. Australiaâs Sydney Morning Herald carried this quote from Assistant US Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff from the trial of the six:
We donât believe the evidence is going to show that any of these six individuals personally took that crowbar or that hammer and hit the limo or personally bashed those windows of that Starbucks in…
Yet, she still argued that they all should be convicted of crimes punishable by up to 61 years in prison. Kerkhoffâs theory relates all protest activities within a legal concept called the Pinkerton rule, which allows the legal system to charge you with a crime for aiding and abetting the commission of that crime, even if you didnât directly do it yourself.
The J20 cases show that the right of dissent is facing a broad legal challenge. Whatâs new is not that a lot of people who were protesting got arrested enmasse, weâve seen that for decades. Whatâs alarming is that so many people were charged with felony conspiracy to riot, which is unprecedented.
America is now seeing how the line between what is defined as a protest and what is a riot is arbitrary, and is entirely up to the police and prosecutors to define.
Across the US, almost 60 bills have been introduced in Republican-controlled state legislatures since Trumpâs election broadening the definition of rioting or increasing penalties for protesters found to have broken the law.
These efforts by legislators and prosecutors are important and chilling. Think about how easy it is at a protest for violence or window-breaking to be done by a person who is not part of the protesting group. Possibly sent by an opposing group, or even by law enforcement, specifically to discredit the protest.
Now, nobody should defend goons who break windows and set cars on fire at rallies or marches. But the rest of us who are protesting cannot be deemed guilty of the same crimes.
These are old tactics, returning in new, improved forms. Implementing these new laws could lead to unintended consequences. Under the 1949 4th Geneva Conventions, collective punishment is a war crime. And the Additional Protocol II of 1977 explicitly forbids collective punishment in local situations.
But, isnât this what the police and prosecutors are doing?
Time to wake up America, before we lose the few rights we have as citizens!
It should be shocking that this story isnât being covered by the US mainstream media. And it is shocking that 60 people, many of whom were not conspiring to riot may go to jail. We must elect representatives who have an understanding of the First Amendment.
To help you wake up, here is âI Ain’t Marching Anymoreâ by Phil Ochs from his 1965 LP:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Kangaroos in a vineyard in Barossa Valley Australia, June 2017 – photo by David Gray
People canât stop talking about the Donny/Vlad meeting in Hamburg, and the idea that Trumpâs position regarding the potential Russian involvement in the 2016 election is: âLetâs move onâ. Then, we learned that our new Syria strategy is driven by Russia and its plan for a cease fire.
But, Russia is the story of the Trump presidency. We learned over the weekend that Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr. met with Russian lawyers back in June of 2016. But, despite the continued news about meetings with the Russians, appearances donât make the Trumps guilty. Mueller and his team will examine and understand the full extent of what the Russians did, and what they attempted to do. Only then will we determine if the Russians efforts had any effect.
There are two broad areas of potential Russian involvement to consider:
Interference in the electoral process: Russians attempt to manipulate domestic politics of many countries, including the US. We do the same. How serious is the threat? Political candidates already use a full array of tools and technologies to persuade voters toward specific social and political agendas. This persuasion effort is as old as humanity itself.
Whether tech-centric forms of propaganda, employing social media, fake news and data-mining techniques are effective remains to be proven. America has been engaged in exactly this sort of exercise in foreign lands for a long time, without significant (or lasting) success.
These technologies can only support ideas and feelings that are already out there. So, what was out there? Consider these:
Hillary’s emails threatening national security!
Dispensing contradictory, or conflicting, information like âHillary Clinton is very sickâ.
Using social connections to generate, or modify, beliefs, like âTrump is a successful executive who can fix the governmentâ.
This type of information warfare is a lot like managing a stock portfolio. Hackers write small, diverse news stories and then wait to see what pays off. It is unclear that hackers were the tipping point in the election, and it is far from clear that the Russians were the sole party behind them. We donât talk about the many countries that tried to influence our elections, including Saudi Arabia, China, Israel, and Ukraine. Is it more acceptable that the Saudi’s did it the “right” way, by donating massive amounts to their candidateâs campaign?
It is highly unlikely that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians regarding interference in the 2016 election.
Hacking into political databases: the “Russian hacking” stories are not just that Russians hacked the computers of US political operations including the DNC, but that the Russians have somehow delivered the election to Trump. Thus, the story morphed from “Russians infiltrated DNC computers,” to “Russians hacked our democracy.”
The first is both possible and probable, but the second is just wrong.
Hacking our democracy requires changing or destroying votes for one side in the presidential election, or suppressing voter turnout. Not even the Russians have the resources to pull off that feat. They may have preferred that Trump win, they may have done a few things, and Trump won, but that isnât âhacked our democracyâ.
Wrongo thinks it is probable that “Russian hacking” occurred. It is a serious story, but it needs to be placed in context. Yes, Russia has a political agenda. Yes, they use dirty tricks to influence political outcomes. Yes, this needs to be taken seriously. The problem is that once that is taken out of context, everything is reduced to political talking points. We are asked to choose between two absurd choices: Either Trump is a Russian stooge, or accusations against Trump are a baseless pack of lies.
The likely “truthâ is that Russians were doing something, but what they did wasnât material to the (relatively) close outcome of this election. This has been crowded out of serious discussion.
And who hacked us is still not definitively attributed: there are too many suspects with a motive, means, and opportunity. We canât yet discount the possibility of domestic operatives (or disgruntled campaign workers) or political plants within campaigns doing mischief.
Sooner or later, we will figure out the definitive attribution for the hacks. And 2018 will bring new tools and techniques.
Who falls short may depend more on message, and less on technology.
Time for a tune. Here is Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit doing âHope the High Roadâ (leads you home again):
Takeaway Lyric:
I know you’re tired
And you ain’t sleeping well
Uninspired
And likely mad as hell
But wherever you are
I hope the high road leads you home again
To a world you want to live in
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Wildflowers in the Temblor Range, CA. April 2017 photo by Robyn Beck
We still have little hard evidence proving that Syria gassed its own people. Much like Iraq in 2003, we have made a military move that feels great emotionally, but that isnât built on a solid foundation of fact. That the Syrian government deliberately used chemical weapons to bomb its civilians became absolute truth in US media in less than 24 hours.
And once that tidal wave of American war frenzy starts rolling, questioning the casus belli is not permitted. Wanting conclusive evidence before commencing military action will get you vilified, denounced as a sympathizer with Americaâs enemies.
When Trump launched the tomahawks, most in the mainstream media suddenly fawned all over him. Margret Sullivan in the WaPo quoted several, starting with CNNâs Fareed Zakaria:
I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night…
Sullivan noted that the NYT’s piece failed to even mention that Trump is keeping refugees from the Syrian war, even children, out of the US. Victims of chemical weapons were âbeautiful babiesâ to Trump at his news conference, while the children trying to flee such violence require âextreme vettingâ and face an indefinite refugee ban. And this from the WSJâs Bret Stephens, previously a Trump critic:
 President Trump has done the right thing and I salute him for it…Now destroy the Assad regime for good.
Perhaps the worst was MSNBCâs Brian Williams, who used the word âbeautifulâ three times when discussing the tomahawk missile launches. He quoted a Leonard Cohen lyric (from First We Take Manhattan): I am guided by the beauty of our weapons â without apparent irony:
We see these beautiful pictures at night from the decks of these two US Navy vessels in the eastern Mediterranean…I am tempted to quote the great Leonard Cohen: âI am guided by the beauty of our weapons.â…They are beautiful pictures of fearsome armaments making what is for them what is a brief flight over to this airfield…
Williams might have focused on: What did they hit? What are the strategic consequences?
Many of these same media pukes were continuously expressing doubts about Trumpâs judgment since before his election. But, when he orders the use of force, his judgment needs to be questioned by them more than ever. One reason that the US so easily resorts to the use of force abroad is that the very people that should be the first to question the rationale for a presidential military decision are instead among the first to cheer it and celebrate it.
We see groupthink most of the time when the American news media watches an administration step up to the brink of war. This was true in the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003, the start of our longest military disaster.
Journalists and pundits need to keep virtues like skepticism, facts on the ground, and context fixed firmly in their minds. They should not be like Brian Williams, focused on spectacular images in the night sky, without contemplating their deadly effect.
For example, how can the media NOT ask how Trump, a man with little outward empathy, can change in a minute, suddenly becoming a caring individual about beautiful Syrian babies? Or, how in a period of 24 hours, Trump managed to flip-flop 180 degrees on a position about Syria that he’s held for years?
Why is the media leading the cheers on Syria, but keeping silent about Yemen?
Why are there never pictures of âbeautifulâdead babies after our drone strikes go awry?
Time for the main stream media to wake up and do their jobs in an old school way. To help them wake up, here is Brian Williamsâs favorite lyricist, Leonard Cohen, with âFirst We Take Manhattanâ:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Takeaway Lyric:
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I’m guided by a signal in the heavens
I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin
I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
Itâs Saturday, and Wrongo wishes he was sitting in that beautiful 5,000 book home library, drinking a Grande Chai Latte, listening to music, and distracted from the world at large.
But reluctantly, Wrongo watched some of Trump’s press conference on Thursday (transcript and video here). His presentation style is obnoxious. He adds opinions and adjectives to everything that he, or anyone else says. The point is that he NEEDS to tell you that his shit is great, and yours stinks.
He has memorized a list of both positive and negative adjectives, and he fires them in volleys as he speaks. He said that he has made “incredible progress” so far. Every new POTUS claims to make progress on something in the early weeks, but generally, they leave it to the media and public to evaluate the claim. Trump however, gives us the first glowing review of his work, and if possible, the first negative review of his opponents.
This is highly problematic for fact-based observers, because they have to evaluate not only “progress” but “incredible progress”
He is willing to lie about things that a ten year old could fact check. A lot of his shtick is a continuation of his basic campaign speech, and nobody needs to waste time refuting that BS. We can just roll our eyes, and move on.
However, we should be very concerned about how completely he controlled the press conference. It seemed to Wrongo that the press corps acted in a less than first-rate manner when on their feet. They had few sharp or pointed questions, and they allowed Trump to repeatedly call them out for trading in fake news.
Why didnât anyone point out that the slow confirmation process for Cabinet positions is due mostly to Trump naming his appointees late, followed by submitting the required paperwork slowly?
Trump gets away with his whining because the press spends time trying to play âgotcha” with the Jedi Master of gotcha: Did you see what he did to Rep. Elijah Cummings? They should be exposing that half of what Trump thinks he knows is wrong. But he sure knows how to hold a press conference, and we should probably expect him to do more of them than any previous POTUS.
The Trumpets like the notion that he’s going to “Shake things up“, but he plans to go well beyond shaking things up. For example, he wants to change the balance of power with the other two branches, and it appears that many of his supporters actually want that to happen.
It he pulls that off, say bye-bye democracy.
Wrongo gets incensed when powerful people attack the weak and vulnerable. He believes in the importance and value of facts and rational thought. But Trump, and his so-called mainstream Republican buddies keep moving farther and farther away from these values.
We could try to look at each lie or obfuscation in Trumpâs press conference, but something is lost when you look at the trees rather than the forest.
And its Trumpâs forest of total bullshit that needs to be chopped down by what remains of the independent media.
Politico reports that President Trump has actually done little since entering office despite White House aide Stephen Millerâs bragging on the Sunday Pundits:
We have a president who has done more in three weeks than most presidents have done in an entire administration.
That simply isnât true, but the thrust of the article is that, when you tune out the noise coming from the White House, very little has actually happened. From Politico:
So far, Trump has behaved exactly like he has throughout his previous career: He has generated intense attention and sold himself as a man of action while doing little other than promote an image of himself as someone who gets things done.
Sorry, but this is characteristic of the gleeful DC narrative that Trump is failing, that heâs bumping up against the institutional/Constitutional realities of Washington. This meme seems to repeat the same mistakes that smart people made during the campaign â misreading and underestimating Trump. They see him challenged on a few things and assume that since Trump thought heâd show up, wave a wand, and make things happen immediately, and is now stymied, therefore he must be frustrated. They presume that clashes with other branches of government, or with the unfawning press, or the âresistanceâ from the 52% that didnât vote for him to begin with, has made him cool his jets.
Why should we think it upsets him that his first bolts out of the gate are stymied?
Wrongo thinks that so far, Trump is winning. His fights with what he calls âthe Establishmentâ and the âfake news mediaâ are a win from the perspective of the Trumpets. They figure thatâs what he was sent to DC to do.
If heâs not trying to learn the ropes? That goes in the plus column. And if itâs reported that he shows impatience or impulsiveness? Plus column. To his base, the furor in the media makes the infuriated ones, and those who report it, seem like smug elitists, determined to enforce the status quo through the usual DC tactics.
Really, everything Politico says are problems for Trump are the opposite. Heâs ginned up a national hissy fit over his ill-conceived Executive Order on immigration, while managing to mostly get his cabinet choices confirmed (sorry Mr. Pudzer) â a cabinet more radical and unqualified than any traditional Republican would dare to nominate.
Dems obsess over each offense and announce âresistanceâ but have no real strategy. They raise money but can do little, while being viewed as unseemly in Trumpâs flyover country.
When the Republican obstruction to Obama took shape in 2008, they assumed a posture of cooperation, only to be âdisappointedâ by the âextremeâ positions of the President. Rarely in Obamaâs first term did they announce obstruction in advance of his actions. By his second term, Democrats had lost enough seats that they no longer had the ability to override Republican inertia, and the GOP’s naked obstruction was visible.
Now Democrats have fewer votes as a minority party than the GOP had in 2016, and have no way to block anything but the most obnoxious Trump moves, assuming that a few Senate Republicans join in the blockage.
Trump has no need to figure out or to get along with Washington â in fact, thatâs the opposite of what he wants. He has staked his political fortune on an âown the mobâ strategy â which worked just fine in November. He doesnât need to deliver on his election promises. He needs to let Republicans push through the horrifying agenda theyâve salivated over for decades. And he will.
He needs a riled up Establishment to blame for any stymied efforts. This means the more cartoonish his behavior the better, as the Establishment will be all too happy to jump on his missteps.
Trump wonât suffer if he never comes up the learning curve.
The rest of us, the country, the world, will. We actually need things to work.
Here is Robert Cray with âSmoking Gunâ recorded in 1986. With all the Trump people who seem to be on the wrong side of the CIA and FBI, it seems appropriate:
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Did Wrongo miss anything yesterday? We had multiple meetings, and thus, no chance to see the âYou Bet Your Countryâ reality show that premiered in DC.
Look on the bright side, there are now only 1,459 days left in the reign of DT, so two things to focus on:
Work hard to save the ACA, and
Remember to toast to the health of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer every day.
Today is the Womenâs March in Washington DC. Two days in a row of firsts for our Orange Overlord. Yesterday, he was sworn in as the 45th president. Today, he sees his first mass protest in the form of the Womenâs March, and companion marches (600 at last count) around the country and the world.
New York Magazine tweaks the main stream mediaâs coverage thusly: (brackets by the Wrongologist)
…the mediaâs treatment of the [womenâs] march has been so fretful that youâd be forgiven for thinking that this grass-roots demonstration of hundreds of thousands on behalf of womenâs rights is an example of feminism in crisis and disarray.
Whenever there are protests from the left, we’re always adjured that we’re doing it wrong and/or that our “message” is defocused or unclear. Leftwing protests get little coverage in the MSM. Wrongo has observed that when there are rightwing protests, they are typically universally covered by the MSM. Plus their “message” is always described as clear, and unequivocal.
There have been protests at most recent inaugurals, but they have been generally along the parade route, as there were in DC today. The car and trash can burnings made today’s DC protests look more like what we see in European capitals.
What the Womenâs March envisions is a protest that creates as much buzz as the inauguration itself. That means the organizers are attempting to create a widespread, and diverse coalition for this event. The hope is: (1) a huge crowd shows up to protest; (2) the protest is marked by its size and the quality of its direct action (without violence); (3) the obvious fissures in the coalition remain unclear to the public until long after the march.
The March on Washington in August, 1963 was one of the largest political demonstrations in American history. The organizing idea was a protest for âjobs and freedomâ. You may not remember that John Lewis’s original speech at the March on Washington was highly controversial. Now, 54 years down the road, no one cares, because of the power of Lewis’s personal history, and the fact that the march ultimately led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The March on Washington was broadcast on TV, because we had not yet become jaded about protests, and the White House was vulnerable from both sides of the racial divide. The Womenâs March is only expected to be live-streamed via cell phone. The networks will give us highly edited snippets on the evening news.
The value of these large public protests are in building a more unified opposition movement. Perhaps it will happen this time, although there is a risk that it fizzles like the Occupy Movement did.
The Tea Party began building their national presence with a rally of maybe 7000 people in tri-corner hats, enabled by a few Congress Critters. That was enough for the media to legitimize their birth. Perhaps it will work for the Womenâs March: it will become a viable movement only if the commitment to messaging and building a national presence in Congressional districts and statehouses is carried through.
What will be more significant for the future are the state capitol and major city rallies once the protesters leave Washington. Resistance IS the message: The voters did not deliver Trump an overwhelming mandate to do the things his juggernaut is planning to shower on America.
Handled correctly that could make Trump and the GOP vulnerable. The Wrongologist will post a first-person report from an attendee at the Womenâs March, on Tuesday.
But today is Saturday, and you need to mellow out a little. Here is something radically different, yet completely familiar. This is the Austrian brass ensemble Mnozil Brass performing Queenâs âBohemian Rhapsodyâ. What better tribute to Freddie Mercury? These guys are demonstrably horny and have lots of brass. High energy, and completely entertaining:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJTIJRoEWPE
Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.
Today is the Trump Inaugural. So many preparations, and so much detail for the transition team to worry about. From the no stone left unturned department, comes this from the WSJ:
 Workers preparing for the Trump Inaugural have taped over the name of the company â âDonâs Johnsâ â that has long supplied portable restrooms for major outdoor events in the nationâs capital…Virginia-based Donâs Johns calls itself the Washington areaâs top provider of portable toilet rentals. But the name apparently strikes too close to home for inaugural organizers.
Too close to Donald John for Donald John Trump? Of course. Somebody placed blue tape over the company name on dozens of portable restrooms installed near the Capitol for the inauguration. The company says they didnât do it. But, the companyâs name is clearly blocked from the TV cameras:
Once Donald J. Trump becomes the 45th president of the US, he will certainly push the agenda that got him elected. We all will need a way to sort the signal from the noise that we will hear from both his partisans and his opposition (which includes the Wrongologist). When you hear people raising reasoned questions and objections to Trumpâs proposed policies, odds are that youâre listening to the kind of dissent thatâs essential to our democracy, and you ought to take it seriously. For the kinds of arm-waving, emotional, knee-jerk support (or criticism) that you will hear every day, feel free to ignore that. You will know the knee-jerk stuff, since it will be sung in harmony by all the other partisans. And the media will repeat it often for your consideration.
Wrongo has serious problems with Trump, but is hopeful that his administration will:
Live up to his populist domestic promises, and
Simplify our countryâs confusing foreign policy
If he normalizes relations with Russia, extracts us from the messes in Iraq and Syria and if he encourages domestic jobs growth, Wrongo will likely sign up for all of that. If he pushes through a big infrastructure bill that isnât a wealth transfer to corporations, Wrongo will probably go along with that as well.
Wrongo does not trust Trump or the GOP on health care insurance. He worries that Republicans will throw a number of Americans under the bus, causing a great deal of unnecessary pain.
You can be sure that Trump is going to try to do some terrible things over the next four years, such as appointing ideologues to the Supreme Court. But, Congressional Republicans will clearly attempt far worse things than will The Overlord.
So the terrible fact is, we have to count on Trump to rein in the worst of the GOPâs ideas and instincts.
Needing to trust Donald Trump is enough to frighten anyone.
Trump tweets continually to rally his supporters while simultaneously manipulating the media. It’s unnerving. Saying that Trump is terrifying, while correct, is useless. The most obsessive of his opponents focus on worst-case scenarios that are designed to rally (and raise money from) the anti-Trump troops among us. Sadly, that strategy largely guarantees that the opposition will look disorganized and fragile. It also causes the American center-left to be fragmented issue by issue, and therefore, unable to broadly challenge the GOP, at least in the short run.
The Dems need to coalesce around only the potentially win-able issues. Otherwise, they should âjust say noâ to any Trump legislation intended to weaken or break our social contract. Sen. Schumer is correct when he says that the GOP needs to own 100% of the pain they cause the average person, whenever they break the contract. Any Democrat that breaks ranks to support issues like cuts to Medicare or privatization of Social Security must be challenged from the left in the next primary.
Democrats did not believe they would be in this political mess. They are trying to find their footing, but establishment Democrats want to simply tweak the message, and stay the course.
However, the battle against Trump and the GOP majority must move from “Republican Lite” to a fight to put social justice and progressivism back on the table as viable options for all Americans.
Otherwise, it will be a precipitous fall from political relevancy for Democrats.
Establishment Democrats who profit from the status quo, have no incentive to come up with an agenda that appeals to people who are suffering because of that status quo. The great weakness of Hillary Clinton’s campaign was that she aimed her appeals at the minority of voters who would benefit from the established neoliberal order, while largely ignoring those who suffered under it.
That decision could cost the Dems for a generation.
Wrongo and Ms. Right watched theâ60 Minutesâ Trump interview on Sunday. Basically, it was a low-information session, long on atmosphere and short on what is likely to happen in the first 100 days of Trumptopia.
There were hints that low information may be emblematic of the future relationship between the press and the new administration. In the interview, there was this: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
Lesley Stahl:…A lot of people are afraid. Theyâre really afraid. African Americans think thereâs a target on their back. Muslims are terrified.
Donald Trump: I think itâs horrible if thatâs happening. I think itâs built up by the press because, frankly, theyâll take every single little incident that they can find in this country…andtheyâll make into an event because thatâs the way the press is.
More press paranoia by the Donald-elect. To think of the media as liars destroys one of the only protections we have for our democracy.
What does that future look like? It looks like a pitched battle between a man who made his own media rules and rode them to victory, and a traditional press that has lost much of its power.
It seems obvious that President-elect Trumpâs relationship with the press could be more contentious than even that of Richard Nixon.
Trumpâs spokesperson, Hope Hicks, had to go out of her way to reassure the media that Trump was planning to operate a normal press âpool,â in which the president travels with reporters who share their news reports with others. The press is concerned, since they were not permitted to travel with Trump during the campaign.
But the media holding the Trump administrationâs feet to the fire was is made very difficult by Trumpâs points about social media in the â60 Minutesâ interview: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)
Lesley Stahl: But are you going to be tweeting [about] whatever youâre upset about…when youâre president?
Donald Trump: So itâs a modern form of communication, between Face– you know, Facebook and Twitter and I guess Instagram, I have 28 million people. 28 million people—
So, Trump has the ability to talk directly to more people than the networks. During the campaign, Trump took advantage of that to spread both accurate (and inaccurate) information that helped his cause. In effect, the Trumpets were using the media equivalent of modern military technology while the mainstream media (and the Clinton campaign) used tanks and bayonets.
Going forward, what will happen when Trump, who has continued to attack the motives of the press, has to deal with them as president? Will Breitbart News and Fox get preferential treatment while the New York Times and the Washington Post are left scrambling for the scraps they leave behind?
And if that happens, who is in a position to stop him? In 2016 and going forward, how will you find out what is really going on in the world?
And think about the parallels to the GW Bush presidency: Pence has the operations role. This could very well turn into another Cheney Administration, where Pence actually runs the government in the background while Trump soaks up all the attention playing Mister President on Twitter and for the cameras.
The parallels are frightening. Fortune has this vision of the future:
A weakened and increasingly marginalized traditional media, fighting with the tools of a previous era, surrounded by more nimble adversaries who know how to use social platforms for their own ends, and a president who is actively hostile to the traditional press. Not that long ago, it probably felt like things couldnât get any worse for the mediaâbut they just did.
Letâs not lose hope completely. Why? This administration will enter office with close to zero credibility with the press. Think about how few newspapers endorsed Trump.
Second, the media remembers its failures to follow the facts during the Bush administration. So, the fear of being called unpatriotic as those few in the media were when they spoke out against Bushâs Iraq policy, will be tempered by the pressâs memory of their complicity in Iraq War.
Finally, blogs and social media can work both ways. They may have helped elect Trump, but social media in particular will not allow Trump to operate unchallenged.
That challenge will force the MSM to follow stories in a way that didnât happen in the GW Bush administration.
As we go down the stretch to Tuesdayâs election, the political dynamic has switched from being a referendum on Donald Trump to a referendum on Hillary Clinton.
It seems fitting that in the final stretch of a presidential campaign that has been completely indifferent to policy issues, from Russia, China, and the Middle East, to jobs and income inequality at home. Our news outlets are now focused on an apparently impregnable story about the Pant Suitâs private e-mail server, and the Clintons generally.
Since FBI Director James Comeyâs announcement, weâve seen the drip, drip of musings by the cableistas about whether Clinton can hang on to her lead, or if Trump can win on Tuesday.
There have also been a series of leaks by the FBI that appear to be designed to damage Hillary Clinton and benefit Donald Trump. An anonymous source leaked to the Wall Street Journal that there was an FBI investigation âââincluding âsecret recordingsâââ âinto the Clinton Foundation.
Fox News reported on Wednesday that the FBI is intensifying an investigation into the Clinton Foundation over allegations that it traded donations for access to Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.
And thereâs more. Judd Legum reports that the FBIâs Inspection Division is launching an investigation into why its FBI Records Vault Twitter bot re-released the files on Bill Clintonâs pardon of Marc Rich.
The FBI Twitter account was inactive from September 2015 until October 8th. Then there were a flurry of tweets, concluding with the Marc Rich tidbit. It has not been active since that tweet, so:
Candice Will, Assistant Director for the FBIâs Office of Professional Responsibility, said she was referring the matter to the FBIâs Inspection Division for an âinvestigation.â Upon completion of the investigation, the Office of Professional Responsibility will be referred back to the Office of Professional Responsibility for âadjudication.â
According to Marcy Wheeler, the Inspection Division and the Office of Professional Responsibility doesnât have statutory independence from the rest of the FBI, which means their investigation can be influenced (or quashed) by FBI executives. So, nothing will be done, despite the fact that Federal law and FBI policy prohibit employees from using the power of the department to attempt to influence elections.
Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comeyâs July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clintonâs maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.
âThe FBI is Trumpland,â said one current agent.
This was also confirmed to Wrongo recently by an in-law who used to work for the FBI. Itâs as if the ghost of ole J. Edgar showed up early in October, and has decided to hang around for a while, even though Halloween is over.
The FBI has now entered parlous political territory. This is law enforcement trying to force its will on civil authority. We need to put a choke collar on this dog, before it tries to bite us all.
We all should care about how FBIâs apparent misconduct is affecting the election.And if the FBI is this politicized, it is an enemy of We the People, and will remain an enemy, even if Comey is ousted as Director.
Wrongo is now beginning to think of Comey as another John Boehner, a guy with decent instincts who is completely ineffective at controlling his team, with disastrous results for the country.
Imagine how The Donald as president, would use a vast public police force that is comprised of Trump true believers.
