It's
nothing new that some people view themselves beyond criticism. Call it a partisan attack and that's supposed to counter any argument. As Bob Cesca
points out:
If partisanship invalidates investigations, then logic mandates that the Benghazi and email investigations, among various others, never should have occurred.
And now there's an accusation of a campaign "
spy".
To describe [von Clownstick's] accusation of a pre-election partisan attack as being unfounded and fact-free is to vastly understate [his] lack of documentary or reportorial evidence.
Heather Digby Parton
notes:
Someone needs to remind these people that they won the election. They seem to have forgotten.
Parton explains.
In the right wing's alternative version of reality, none of these stories about [Dear Leader] and his associates meeting with foreign actors eager to help him sabotage his rival's campaign, or large sums of unaccounted-for foreign money being funneled to his personal fixer, or even the obvious conflicts of interest suggesting that flat-out corruption is the most reasonable explanation for [Orangeman's] unpredictable foreign policy, even exist. In their reality, federal law enforcement intervened in the election to deny [Fuckface von Clownstick] the presidency on behalf of Hillary Clinton. You may think they had a funny way of showing it, since they kept their investigation top secret while the FBI director went out of his way to sully Hillary Clinton's reputation at the last minute.
I don't know how we get past this pervasive bullshit. Because it does
shape the attitudes of Dear Leader's supporters. And, as Daniel DeNicola argues, we really
don't have a right to believe just anything we want.
Our beliefs are intended to reflect the real world – and it is on this point that beliefs can go haywire. There are irresponsible beliefs; more precisely, there are beliefs that are acquired and retained in an irresponsible way. One might disregard evidence; accept gossip, rumour, or testimony from dubious sources; ignore incoherence with one’s other beliefs; embrace wishful thinking; or display a predilection for conspiracy theories.
Jeremy Shapiro
makes the connection to thinking errors.
[S]cience deniers engage in dichotomous thinking about truth claims. In evaluating the evidence for a hypothesis or theory, they divide the spectrum of possibilities into two unequal parts: perfect certainty and inconclusive controversy. Any bit of data that does not support a theory is misunderstood to mean that the formulation is fundamentally in doubt, regardless of the amount of supportive evidence.
And Michael Blake
explains how this bullshit is worse than lies.
Democracy requires us to work together, despite our disagreements about values. This is easiest when we agree about a great many other things – including what evidence for and against our chosen policies would look like.
The case I have made about [a policy] may well be undermined by some new fact. Biologist Thomas Huxley noted this in connection with science: A beautiful hypothesis may be slain by an “ugly fact.”
The same is true, though, for democratic deliberation. I accept that if my predictions about [the policy] prove wrong, that counts against my argument. Facts matter, even if they are unwelcome ones.
If we are allowed to bullshit without consequence, though, we lose sight of the possibility of unwelcome facts. We can instead rely upon whatever facts offer us the most reassurance.
Unwelcome facts are certainly a problem for someone who flouts the law. But as Sam Nunberg has
suggested, "this is not a legal fight, this is a political fight." So, where does it end? Blake:
Facts, in short, can be adjusted, until they match up with our chosen view of the world. This has the bad effect, though, of transforming all political disputes into disagreements about moral worldview. This sort of disagreement, though, has historically been the source of our most violent and intractable conflicts.
Update: This "spy" accusation is really an effort to turn the table and create their own set of "facts". And here's another fact--a president can't
order the Department of Justice to
start an investigation.
I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled [My] Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration.
Update (May 23): The level of
corruption is
mind-boggling. But Fuckface knows what's he's doing--facts don't matter if you can convince enough people to not trust the source of the information. Lesley Stahl
reports on Dear Leader's response when she asked him after the election (but off camera) why he continues to attack the press.
I do it to discredit you all, to demean you all so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.
Cenk Uygur
argues no one should be surprised by this and that Fuckface
tends to get away with it because commercial "news" organizations are generally more interested in selling a product (don't offend the customers) than reporting the truth.
Update (May 27): Rudy Giuliani
admits that the attacks on Mueller's investigation are "for public opinion". But Senator Lindsey Graham
notes that a "confidential informant is not a spy".
Update (May 30): Representative Trey Gowdy
says it was
appropriate for the FBI to use an informant.
Also, even FOX News
disputes the Fuckface claim that the Mueller investigators are planning to
meddle in this year's election. Heather Digby Parton
warns that his contempt for the rule of law is
increasingly troubling.
Over and over again, [von Clownstick] is making the case that he is above the law and the Constitution is no more than an anachronistic irrelevance. His followers cheer him wildly for making that case and there's every reason to believe that this idea is starting to become less shocking and disorienting every day.
Update (June 2): The New York Times has
obtained a copy of a letter von Clownstick's lawyers send to Robert Mueller. They claim that a President
cannot obstruct justice by
definition while revealing that Fuckface did
dictate the
letter his son used to explain away the famous Tower meeting with Russians.
It remains our position that the President’s actions here, by virtue of his position as the chief law enforcement officer, could neither constitutionally nor legally constitute obstruction because that would amount to him obstructing himself, and that he could, if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired.
...
You have received all of the notes, communications and testimony indicating that the President dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times article on behalf of his son.
Update (June 4): Jason Johnson:
The Constitution wasn't written for a president like this. It was written for a moral man or woman. It was written for someone who had a sense of shame. It was written for parties, and organizations, and branches that didn't want to see their power usurped.
We are in a constitutional crisis because no one’s doing their one job!
Bob Cesca and
Heather Digby Parton are also sounding further warnings:
[Fuckface], being a political novice, has zero respect for the strictures traditionally placed on the office of the presidency. Nor does he have any respect for how his actions may resonate long into the future, establishing new and perilous latitude for the White House. The most incompetent, most corrupt and most damaging president in history -- a president with zero expertise in constitutional law or political tradition -- believes he has greater powers than all previous chief executives. It’s in writing now, visible in the public domain, and it enjoys the fist-pumping enthusiasm of way too many citizens. This is harrowing.
*********
None of this should surprise us. He has said over and over that "the world is laughing at us" and he's determined to make it pay, one way or another. He doesn't think he's a king. He thinks he should be emperor.
Update (June 24): Michael Winship
holds "that this gang may be incompetent at a spectacular level but they’re mean to the bone".
[Fuckface] and his crowd are dedicated to curdling the milk of human kindness. They fill their pockets while destroying America in a misbegotten attempt to take it back to a time of ethnic purity that never really was while establishing a new Gilded Age where only a handful can prosper at the expense of everyone else. We are becoming a mean boy nation, a nation once of immigrants but now one of bullies and tyrants. Our president breaks everything he sees, including our democracy and our republic.
Update (July 1): The words of Dear Leader in an
interview on FOX News.
I hope the other side realizes that they better just take it easy. They better just take it easy because some of the language used, some of the words used, even some of the radical ideas I really think they are very bad for the country. I think they’re actually very dangerous for the country.
How is this sentiment, itself, not
dangerous?
