Apocalypse Trump

As you have no doubt noticed there is an apocalyptic story about President Trump just about every day. As you have also no doubt noticed, these stories contain very little in the way of facts.

Today Yahoo "News" (quote marks are mine) treated us to this howler:

The Comey memo was also about Trump’s request to arrest reporters. Journalists call it ‘crazy and scary.’

 

Only two small problems, again. No memo and no named source. Other than that, its totally credible. Well, no, it isn't.

Perhaps there is a memo, I guess we'll see. Seems to me that whoever leaked this could easily have made a copy of the "memo" available. After all, according to the NYT story Yahoo "News" relies on,

"The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter." If it isn't classified why not share it? As any 10 year old knows, because it either doesn't exist, doesn't say what the leaker claims it does, or the leaker is daring Trump to release the recordings of his conversations with Comey Trump referred to so they will know whether the tapes exist. Much better to know that before hand than risk being exposed for what they are if they publish the memo.

Curious indeed. If you read the NYT story you can see the methodology. An anonymous source reads from a "memo" the NYT cannot see. The NYT sees no problem here. In fact, the story extrapolates from the "memo" no one has seen.

Here is one of my favorites.

"The documentation of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia."

What "documentation"? No one has seen any such documentation but extrapolating damning conclusions from a document they don't have and have never seen is no stretch at all when President Trump is involved. And they wonder why Trump hates them and makes no secret of it.

President Trump vowed to "drain the swamp" that is Washington D.C. The swamp creatures are fighting back in unprecedented style.

Bureaucrats, prime stakeholders in the swamp, are leaking details of every meeting Trump has. Main stream media, also prime stakeholders in the swamp, continually print stories based on absolutely nothing but "unnamed sources" referring, to but never producing any "documentation".

This, from a recent Washington Post story, is, I think, a record for anonymous sourcing.

"But the private accounts of more than 30 officials at the White House, the Justice Department, the FBI and on Capitol Hill, as well as Trump confidants and other senior Republicans, paint a conflicting narrative centered on the president’s brewing personal animus toward Comey. Many of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to candidly discuss internal deliberations." Emphasis added.

So, "more than 30" eh? Well, how many actually or are the reporters unable to count that high? What possible reason could the writers have for not including the actual number? Many possibilities. None of which reflect well on the reporters, their editors or The Washington Post. Chief among the possibilities is that there were not 30 sources but they admired the effect the inclusion of the number had on the story's claim to legitimacy.

Then there is this; "Many of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity..."

"Many"? There is not a single named "source" in the story as it relates to the leak. Why not include a quote from someone who didn't insist on anonymity?  Because none of the quoted, attributed sources, were among the leakers. They were just offering opinions. Why include such dissembling? Because they are not writing a news story. They are trying to destroy the presidency of the man who vowed to make them play by the rules.

They are protecting their turf and will not give up easily.

Do not believe anything they say about President Trump. Not a thing. Their purpose is to persuade the President's supporters to abandon him. We won't. If any of his other supporters are anything like me, the behavior of the press and the bureaucrats simply confirms that Trump is and was right. These people are much more interested in taking him down than they are in reporting the "news".

One thing I find puzzling. Do they really want a President Pence? Hillary he is not.