US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1193

On March 09 2019 03:43 On_Slaught wrote:
David Brooks is a RINO according to Trump cultists. Conservatives wont care what he has to say. In fact, tribalism dictates they reject the position solely because of the author.

Edit: sigh, I've hit my max articles. Got to find a diff place to read the article.

On March 09 2019 03:43 On_Slaught wrote:
David Brooks is a RINO according to Trump cultists. Conservatives wont care what he has to say. In fact, tribalism dictates they reject the position solely because of the author.

Edit: sigh, I've hit my max articles. Got to find a diff place to read the article.

In the recent national coverage of this incident, based on an article in The New Yorker, no one has questioned why Stormy would try to leak an anti-Trump story exclusively to Fox News, seen by virtually everyone as a pro-Trump outlet. In reality, she was actually talking to a handful of others as well.

The Daily Beast later reported that it had “protracted talks” with her and had three sources confirming the affair. She was reportedly in talks with Good Morning America as well.

So why didn’t those outlets publish anything either? The best account I’ve found was written by Jacob Weisberg, Slate’s then editor-in-chief, who was also chasing the story. It’s a fascinating read and similar to our own experiences.

Prior to the election, he had spoken several times to Daniels and even seen some so-called corroborating evidence, yet still didn’t publish a story, for solid reasons. For instance, an unsigned, undated “contract” from Daniels’ lawyers with pseudonyms throughout is far from proof of the affair.

Why would they offer these bizarre snippets of information and then go silent? Again, Slate’s editor gives the best explanation: “Daniels said she was talking to me and sharing these details because Trump was stalling on finalizing the confidentiality agreement and paying her. Given her experience with Trump, she suspected he would stall her until after the election, and then refuse to sign or pay up.”

After her payment from Trump, Daniels stopped talking, and it took the Wall Street Journal a year to report the story fully on January 12, 2018.

Just days after the WSJ story, Fox’s earlier role in not publishing made its way to the press. Perhaps coincidentally it occurred at the same time Diana Falzone was suing the company for gender and disability discrimination. After I had left the company, Falzone was removed from on-camera work, which was essentially a demotion. She sued, claiming that management believed her recent revelation of endometriosis “detracted from her sex appeal and made her less desirable,” with no mention of a Stormy Daniels or any other story.

Back then, CNN’s Oliver Darcy and Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin were the only reporters to ask for my side of the story. To this day, they’re still the only ones who have.

Enter The New Yorker

In December 2018, Jane Mayer of The New Yorker asked me to talk about some of my experiences at Fox News. I spoke at length with her over the months, yet she never inquired about the Stormy Daniels story at all.

A week before publication, I received a few phone calls from a New Yorker fact checker confirming my quotes. Her last one was a surprise, asking me to confirm or deny what they heard from a secondhand source, alleging I had told our reporter it was “good reporting” but we shelved it because of Rupert Murdoch’s politics. I neither said nor even thought that because neither of those things was true.

I sent Mayer an email with some explanation and an offer to talk, and she responded: “sorry but I didn’t know fact-checkers called, I was hoping to call you first. we just added this to the story today. I’ll call in a bit. up to my eyeballs right this moment.” She never did.

I find it odd that she spoke to multiple others about the event, but didn’t have a single question for me, the person who unilaterally made the decision. She had time to interview and substantively quote The Dirty’s owner, however. In fairness, she did include a link to the year-old Mediaite story and reprinted 10 words from me.

In her 11,635 word piece, she didn’t find room to mention the paucity of evidence we had, the conflicting statements nor the other outlets which responded exactly as we did.

The media reaction

The New Yorker piece couldn’t have been more successful for them. In a media world where criticizing Fox News is an industry staple, the piece was picked up by almost every major outlet and Jane Mayer was feted throughout journalism.

My non-quote quote and wrong story appeared everywhere from cable news to Jimmy Kimmel to the news outlets that re-wrote the story, including The Washington Post, Guardian, Newsweek, The Hill, Esquire, Vanity Fair, and at least 70 others.

I say “re-wrote” instead of “reported” because not a single reporter reached out to me. None.

I’m an easy guy to find, especially since I’m in the process of launching a startup news site intent on bringing fairness back to journalism. This whole episode is an example of why the media has a credibility crisis.

The ultimate irony is that in its zeal to hang Fox News for journalistic malfeasance, the media tossed journalistic standards in the trash can and gave readers the 100% wrong impression of Fox and the Stormy Daniels story.

Journalists: these are the reasons why half of America believes Donald Trump when he calls us “fake.”

On March 09 2019 02:10 KwarK wrote:

I think this post is going to age well.

On March 09 2019 17:33 iamthedave wrote:


I think it's very unlikely that Trump gets charged. At worst I think he'll get a wrist slap like Hilary did. Xdaunt is hilariously deluded about Trump but he's not wrong about where the investigation isn't going.

On March 08 2019 05:49 Sermokala wrote:

Ok I'm going to assume the best and go with you had a stroke.

You already asked me what I think a communist government is and/or why I think china is communist.

Then I posted this is response.


Then you posted

This is your rebuttle. You don't think china is communist, rather authoritarian. Now being those things don't contradict each other I asked you what you think a communist government is.

This is the last of the conversation before your post so I hope you can understand how baffling and infuriating it is when you decide to snark about how I'm not offering what I think a communist government is. I asked you that question. I already answered that question and you responded, even going so far as to offer what you think our point of disagreement is.

You bring up points that I already brought up and have been responded to not just by me but by other people in the thread. This is "Your posts don't have anything to do with even your own posts", I genuinely don't think you read your own posts let alone anyone else's.

....the Committee is concerned that the Woods procedures and a full presentment of material and relevant facts may not have occurred with regard to the applications for FISA warrants (and the opening of the underlying investigations on) Carter Page and other individuals associated with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Accordingly, the Committee will continue to examine this Congress, as this committe and several other congressional committees did last Congress, potential abuse of the FISA and investigation initiation processes with regard to Carter Page and others associated with the Trump campaign.

On March 10 2019 02:05 xDaunt wrote:
As I referenced yesterday, The Epoch Times has all of the stories containing excerpts of leaked transcripts of congressional investigation testimony here. The transcripts aren't attached in their entirety, but key segments of Q&A are copied and quoted or otherwise summarized.

James Baker.

More James Baker.

Trisha Anderson.

Bill Priestap.

Bruce Ohr.

Lisa Page.

There's a metric shit ton of information in all of these articles (plus the others that aren't linked) about what the FBI and DOJ actually did and did not do, including what information was acted on, as it pertains to the investigation into the Trump campaign and the allegations in the Steele dossier. Perhaps the best way to summarize the information is to reference Senator Graham's letter to Barr last week requesting pretty much everything that the FBI and DOJ have regarding the investigation:



And to just close the loop on yesterday's discussion about the problems with the Steele dossier and why it should be considered false at this point, consider the charges and convictions of Manafort, Gates, and Cohen. Each were major players in the dossier. However neither was charged for anything remotely related to the dossier's allegations. I don't think anyone doubts that the FBI and DOJ went to great efforts to corroborate the information in the dossier. Hell, they got FISA warrants. Notwithstanding that, none of the substantive allegations in the dossier regarding those individuals (or Carter Page, for that matter) panned out so as to result in criminal charges. The absence of such charges is absolutely damning to the veracity of the dossier, which raises the very questions that Graham poses in his letter.