Beyond BuzzFeed: The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump-Russia Story

Glenn Greenwald

BUZZFEED WAS ONCE notorious for traffic-generating “listicles,” but has since become an impressive outlet for deep investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the news this week thanks to its “bombshell” story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story that, like so many others of its kind, blew up in its face, this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller’s office took the extremely rare step to label its key claims “inaccurate.”

But in homage to BuzzFeed’s past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news, the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets (particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end with (dis)honorable mention status.

Note that all of these “errors” go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle’s connection to it. It’s inevitable that media outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that’s being done in good faith, one would expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories. That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its “errors” went in that direction, virtually all of its major “errors” in this story are devoted to the same agenda and script:

10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)

9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)

8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)

Too long, too detailed and with too much graphics and links to reproduce here, go swing by the source, pronto!

The Day after Mueller...

The pushback has begun: 'never Trumpies' and CNN/Rachel Maddow-groupies alike are licking their wounds by sticking their heads firmly up their arses.

Over at wewerefuckedbythemammoth for instance commenter 'Seraph4377' knows something!

Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. That is not in question. That is fact. We should be doing a lot more about this.

She vigorously shook that snow globe, et voilà, presto! Or as dumb fuck Bill Maher once exlaimed (re. Mueller): "I don't need an investigation, I've got television!"

Seraph4377 continues:

As for bellicosity, this was an act of war. If they’d tried this thirty years ago, the nukes would have flown, and rightly so.

Oh dear: willing to risk nuclear winter for the Russiagate hoax: such dedication.

To claim to defend a 'democracy' that is not in great shape (and declining) of a country that hasn't quit interfering in other peopls' democracies (and counting) is truly hilarious.

PS – You used the UK English spelling for “endeavour”. Are you perhaps writing this from somewhere in Europe, comrade?

Probably a Russian spy, Seraph! They're everywhere nowadays.

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You just can't fix stupid, can you?

Breaking: sales of facial scrubbers skyrocket with so much egg on Dems' long faces

Two words: No Collusion.

From what I'm seeing on RT News, Dems are't willing to throw in the towel just yet.

The Neoliberal Brain behind Juan Guaidó

While online audiences know YouTube comedian Joanna Hausmann from her videos making the case for regime change, her economist father has flown below the radar. His record holds the key to understanding what the U.S. wants in Venezuela.

By Anya Parampil

If you’ve followed Venezuela-related news on social media, you’ve undoubtedly stumbled across a video released by comedian Joanna Hausmann in which she promises to tell you, “What’s Happening in Venezuela: Just the Facts.” Despite a title designed to instill confidence in the uninformed viewer, upon closer examination the “facts” presented in Hausman’s video hardly stand the test of reality.

Hausmann, for example, attempted to pass off dubious assertions that Venezuelan opposition leader “Juan Guaidó is not right wing,” and that he “did not just declare himself president” of the country. She also claimed that President Nicolas Maduro “made up” the National Constituent Assembly, neglecting to mention that that governing body was clearly defined in the country’s 1999 Constitution, and was ratified by 71.8 percent of the country through a democratic vote.

Hausmann’s performance ended with a teary-eyed appeal for sympathy: “On a personal level… my father is exiled from going back home.” For a video dedicated to “just the facts,” Hausmann’s rant omitted an especially pertinent piece of information: her exiled father and the rest of her family are no ordinary Venezuelans, and are, in fact, key players in the bid to bring down the elected government.

Much of Hausmann’s script echoed talking points outlined by her father, Ricardo Hausmann, in a 2018 article ominously entitled “D-Day Venezuela.” The piece amounted to a plea for the U.S. to depose Maduro by force, with Hausman arguing that “military intervention by a coalition of regional forces may be the only way to end a man-made famine threatening millions of lives.”

But Ricardo Hausmann is much more than a prominent pundit. He is one of the West’s leading neoliberal economists, who played an unsavory role during the 1980s and ’90s in devising policies that enabled the looting of Venezuela’s economy by international capital and provoked devastating social turmoil.

Much, much more...

Latest Threat to "Jewish Life in the UK"?

From a bizarre open letter to The Times (paywalled):

JEWISH VIEW ON LABOUR PARTY

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is launching an investigation into whether the Labour Party’s handling of anti-semitism within its ranks complies with equalities law. We British Jewish Holocaust survivors do not believe that any prejudice against or hostility towards Jews is being perpetrated by Labour; and if any exists within the party, it is minimal and no more prevalent than in any other political party.

Jeremy Corbyn has in fact bent over backwards to help Jewish people. Media attention on the Labour Party in general, and on Corbyn in particular, is being generated by anti-Labour and anti-Corbyn mischief makers, who unfortunately are over-represented within the so-called Anglo-Jewish leadership — a leadership whose legitimacy is not recognised by the mainstream Haredi (strictly Orthodox) Jews.

The real current threat to Jewish life in the UK is the anti-religious education policies being relentlessly pursued by Ofsted. To our chagrin, they receive full backing and support from these so-called Anglo-Jewish leadership organisations, together with certain secularist groups, which display no compunction in discriminating against people with religious beliefs.

Jacob Ostreicher, Avigdor Langberg, Leah Stern, Minia Meisels, London E5;

Mendel Glausiusz, Eli Schreiber, Kurt Winter, Tauba Posen, Roslie Kornbluh, Abraham Just, Hushi Schreiber, London N16;

Hyman Bindinger, Tyne and Wear

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Strangely, they've got that first bit completely right but what are the threatening "anti-religious education policies being relentlessly pursued by Ofsted"?

We're talking about the new New relationships and health education in schools initiative:

All schools will teach children about good physical and mental health, how to stay safe on and offline, and the importance of healthy relationships under bold new plans published today by Education Secretary Damian Hinds.

Under the proposals, all pupils will study compulsory health education as well as new reformed relationships education in primary school and relationships and sex education in secondary school.

Predictably, the initiative came under fire from a number of religiously minded people, although they appear mainly Muslim.

It would appear the signatories of the above open letter aren't very representative of British Jews as a whole.

Horrific antisemitic abuse suffered by Luciana Berger MP!

Luciana needing police escort after suffering horrific antisemitic abuse

This is a little old but I've only just come across it, so bear with me. Yesterday I saw this facebook page, where a Daniel Sevitt (who?) indulged in a bit of whataboutery:

While I’ve got you here, how come JVL has never published a single word about Kenneth Campbell’s racist abuse of Luciana Berger?

What abuse is he referring to? Well, a quick search coughed up this page from the Ziorag "The JC":

It has since emerged that the proposer of one of the motions, Kenneth Campbell, has called her [Luciana Berger] a "disruptive Zionist" and shared a Facebook post that called Jewish Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge "utterly shameless", the Hurry Up Harry blog revealed.

Funny, isn't it? Objectively, Berger is a proud Zionist (and member of 'Labour Friends of Israel') 'Disruptive' is of course a subjective adjective, nothing more.

So how does this constitute 'abuse'? Aren't we allowed to question politicians any more?

Concludes The Brown Sauce (HP):

It’s hardly surprising that Berger needed police security while Labour Party conference took place last year.

So it appears British Zionism is ideally suited to the British nanny state!

The Making of Juan Guaidó

Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.

Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.

But after a single phone call from from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom-dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.

Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board hailed Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a “refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.” The Bloomberg News editorial board applauded him for seeking “restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal declared him “a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.

While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power.

“Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told The Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”

Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet Misión Verdad, agreed: “Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to The Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”

While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.

“‘These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,” wrote Luis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According to León, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a solution.’”

But this is precisely why Guaidó was selected by Washington: He is not expected to lead Venezuela toward democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.

Much moar!