Losing The Plot

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Having sold Americans the seductive and conspiratorial notion that the man in the oval office was a compromised foreign agent, now comes a moment of reckoning for the US media…

Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post on Trump, Russia, and the collapse of the collusion narrative – the theory that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to hijack the 2016 US presidential elections.

Previously: I’m Gonna Set It Straight, This Watergate

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31 thoughts on “Losing The Plot”

  1. rotide

    What genuinely baffles me is people’s refusal to accept that Russia DID try and were somewhat succesful in hijacking the election.

    That Trump didn’t collude with them (although, god knows he tried and couldn’t even do that right) says more about his incompetance than anything else

    1. Termagant

      “Russia DID try and were somewhat succesful in hijacking the election.”
      Were they though?

      1. rotide

        Their preferred candidate won. Someone that the country was genuinely surprised won.

        Well that and the overwhelming opinion of the intelligence community

      1. Nigel

        Poor jusayinlike the moderators keep replacing your comments with the same inane phrases repeated over and over again. Ate they song lyrics? U2?

          3. Nigel

            Bodger stop replacing jusayinlike’s comments with Def Leppard lyrics he might have something interesting to say

    4. jerry

      I dont know where Muller gets the 1.25 M a month – facebook says:

      “Hundreds of fake Facebook accounts, probably run from Russia, spent about $100,000 on ads aimed at stirring up divisive issues such as gun control and race relations during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the social network said Wednesday.”

      https://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-facebook-says-accounts-from-russia-1504779562-htmlstory.html

      google:

      “SAN FRANCISCO — Google has found evidence that Russian agents bought ads on its wide-ranging networks in an effort to interfere with the 2016 presidential campaign.

      The findings from an internal inquiry draw Google further into the growing investigation of how social networks and technology services were manipulated by the Russian government to spread misinformation and sow division during the 2016 election.

      Using accounts believed to be connected to the Russian government, the agents purchased $4,700 worth of search ads and more traditional display ads, according to a person familiar with the company’s inquiry who was not allowed to speak about it publicly. Google found the accounts through its own research and information provided by other technology companies.”

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/technology/google-russian-ads.html

      more than half of these nonsenical click bait ads came after the election, the ads included “jesus hates masterbation” memes and other “divisive” images of race and refugees

      look at the ads yourself, some joke

    5. Listrade

      I don’t see a refusal to accept the interference, but that just might be my circle. I see more a making light of the idea of interference and that’s more to do with schadenfreude and that the US (and others) have also interfered with elections. It’s just the Russian attempt involved less coup d’etats and was a bit more overt.

      But for fear of being peppered with random YouTube links, there is a key point with what we know so far about the report: the scope of the investigation was limited to collusion with Russia on electoral interference. I think they nearly did, but saw sense.

      There was contact, there was at least one meeting. Some anecdotal evidence (that’s all at this stage) that suggest this was about relaxing sanctions against Russia if there was a Trump victory in return for some favourable business deals. Whether this was directed by Trump or not is another question, but it’s still a bit rum.

      Problem is, even if there is a clear recording and video of the meetings, the report would still conclude that there was no collusion on electoral interference. It was just illegal promises relating Foreign Policy in return for personal enrichment. But yeah, elites, democrats, blah, blah, Deep State. Privileged, inherited, billionaires selling out policy so they can be richer. Middle Finger to the Political Elites and all that.

      The whole investigation is like running an investigation to see if I’m dealing cocaine, only to find I’m manufacturing and dealing meth. But it’s not cocaine, so the report “exonerates” me on the cocaine investigation. It may suggest that there is evidence of other criminality, it may include that information, but as that isn’t the focus of the report, it could only really be a footnote. No. Cocaine.

      That’s why the indictments that have been made are for lying. The lie is the offence, but what they were lying about was outside the scope of the investigation. Where definite issues have been found, these have been referred to the appropriate State to investigate again because they related to other corruption, just not the very specific scope of collusion on electoral interference.

      Anyway, MSNBC is as tedious as Fox, but the easiest way to put it all to bed is to release the report. Then we can see each side create their own flat earth logic to defend whatever position they want.

      1. jusayinlike

        You don’t see a refusal to accept, because you’re refusing to accept it. Mental gymnastics. MSNBC are a joke.

  2. Senbob

    If its all a delusion then surely releasing the full Mueller report is but a simple formality.
    Releasing it will only confirm for everyone that it was all a hoax.
    Why wouldnt Trump defenders want to qoute directly from the report that it was all a hoax?

    Hmm i wonder why they wont release it…

  3. edalicious

    Do you not think that saying the collusion “narrative” has collapsed is a bit premature given that no one has actually seen the Mueller Report apart from some clearly partisan people? Surely this piece by AJ is doing precisely what it’s accusing others of doing by leaping to conclusions before having all the facts.

    1. Barry the Hatchet

      +1 This crowing coverage about the conclusions of a report, which almost no one has read and which apparently didn’t reach any conclusions, is painfully absurd.

      2. Termagant

        What conclusions were you expecting? The special counsel acts as prosecutor, the role isn’t to decide guilt or innocence, it’s only to prove guilt, and no guilt was proven.

  4. Nigel

    Does it look at the many and plausible reasons that gave people reasonable grounds for suspicion that there were many dodgy connections between Trump his family, his campaign and Russia? Does it acknowledge these reasons still exist and have not been explained away accounted for or answered? Does the fact that Trump, his family and his various implicated and convicted associates lied about these connections suggest any culpability or responsibility in generating murkiness, confusion, suspicion and speculation? Or is the new narrative idea we must accept that all this was cooked up out of nothing, as if by an anonymous internet poster like, y’know, Q?

    Oh and if we could do gifs on Broadsheet this one would need Mad Max pointing and saying ‘That’s bait.’

      2. Forfuppssake

        Everybody searching for a hero
        People need someone to look up to
        I never found anyone who fulfill my needs
        A lonely place to be
        And so I learned to depend on me

  5. Amorphous Kerry Blob

    Was anyone else annoyed by RTE’s Washington correspondent parroting the collusion narrative spouted by CNN etc.

    A lot of the time it feels like said correspondent (not just the current one) could get the same insights by surfing the web in the RTE offices in Dublin.

    You’d need him/her in America for Saint Patrick’s day, but if push came to shove with RTE’s budgetary pressures, I don’t think there would be major harm done if he/she stayed in Ireland for most of the year, given the current output.

    And maybe said correspondent would prefer to work from home.

    —

    P.S. If the Washington correspondent decides to work from Ireland, someone should tell them that you can get Al Jazeera via FreeSat here.

    1. jerry

      yes, he is terrible – reminds me of the time Michael Noonan was licking the EU’s hole talking about greece and the feta cheese – the sad thing is they dont need to do it and nobody is really that impressed

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