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> One example is Louise Mensch, a once-respectable journalist and former Conservative politician who in 2016 published a story about Trump's alleged ties to Rus

> One example is Louise Mensch, a once-respectable journalist and former Conservative politician who in 2016 published a story about Trump's alleged ties to Russia, Basically the entire mainstream media went on that route during the second part of 2016, some of them are still on it, 6 years later, not sure why this lady (of whom I had never heard until now) got the short stick out of it. > In January, after he lost his position at the radio show LBC due to his increasingly careless theories about a secretive New World Order The only false thing is that there's no secret about it, cue the current war in Ukraine which is fought in relation to that "order" (or the "unipolar liberal order", as the West tries to depict it). On top of that, as a citizen of an EU-member country I experience this first hand, as more and more rights and privileges that used to be decided at the national level (at the highest) have now been transferred to a rainy city a continent away, to some people I have never voted and of whom I know next to nothing (I'm talking about Brussels and the European Commission). This is a coup almost by definition, only that it doesn't involve that many guns (just yet).

pjc50 4y ago
When talking about "Russiagate", as with the Jan 6 hearings, it's important to distinguish between things that have been proven, things that are highly plausible but have inadequate evidence, things for which no evidence has been found despite a search, and things that were never claimed in the first place. A number of people close to Trump did have links to Russian intelligence: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/m... ; the most notable examples are Paul Manafort, who got years in prison, mostly for failing to pay US income tax on his bribes, and the NRA Russian spy Maria Butina. It has not been proven that Trump was complicit in any of this, which is why he's not yet in jail. Louise Mensch is .. odd. She seems to be very much a publicity seeker, she even started her own social network "menshn": https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/feb/06/menshn-close-louise-mensch-luke-bozier https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/feb/06/menshn-close-l...
- paganel 4y ago
  I'm talking about "Trump had sex with Russian prostitutes in a Moscow hotel, the Russians have videos of it, Trump is henceforth blackmailed by Putin". It was first-page news on news websites like NYTimes and the BBC. It proved out to be false. Afaik both the NYTimes and the BBC are still in the news business after all that.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Go on, cite the articles claiming those statements.
    - paganel 4y ago
      We both know they were educated enough to not use those exact words (you won't ever get an OxBridge graduate to write the word "prostitute" down on "paper", even if his/her life depended on it, they're above this plebeian stuff), but that was the gist of the reports back then, yes (I'm thinking mostly December 2016). Of course, the likes of the NYTimes did an 180 (I'd call it a 360, but that's just me) and last year came out with this gem [1]: > Why the Discredited [Steele] Dossier Does Not Undercut the Russia Investigation (...) > No. The Mueller report does not present claims from the dossier as evidence, and many of the issues focused on by investigators did not come up in the dossier. "So, we were damn wrong on the "prostitutes" thing, someone will most likely go to prison for it (not us, fortunately), but trust us when we say this other bad thing about Trump!" On a more general note, it takes more and more mental, I don't even know how to call it, I guess hygiene is the word, to remain sane among all this stuff. I mean, as a reader of news and as a citizen (of the world, I'm not personally from the States) who wants to remain on top of things by staying educated on what's happening and why it is happening. It just isn't humanly possible anymore, the alienating forces have become too powerful. That also explains part of the article posted by the OP. [1] https://archive.ph/2fHH5#selection-313.0-313.70 https://archive.ph/2fHH5#selection-313.0-313.70

pjc50 4y ago

When talking about "Russiagate", as with the Jan 6 hearings, it's important to distinguish between things that have been proven, things that are highly plausible but have inadequate evidence, things for which no evidence has been found despite a search, and things that were never claimed in the first place. A number of people close to Trump did have links to Russian intelligence: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/mueller-indictments-grand-jury https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/20/17031772/m... ; the most notable examples are Paul Manafort, who got years in prison, mostly for failing to pay US income tax on his bribes, and the NRA Russian spy Maria Butina. It has not been proven that Trump was complicit in any of this, which is why he's not yet in jail. Louise Mensch is .. odd. She seems to be very much a publicity seeker, she even started her own social network "menshn": https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/feb/06/menshn-close-louise-mensch-luke-bozier https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/feb/06/menshn-close-l...

paganel 4y ago
I'm talking about "Trump had sex with Russian prostitutes in a Moscow hotel, the Russians have videos of it, Trump is henceforth blackmailed by Putin". It was first-page news on news websites like NYTimes and the BBC. It proved out to be false. Afaik both the NYTimes and the BBC are still in the news business after all that.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Go on, cite the articles claiming those statements.
  - paganel 4y ago
    We both know they were educated enough to not use those exact words (you won't ever get an OxBridge graduate to write the word "prostitute" down on "paper", even if his/her life depended on it, they're above this plebeian stuff), but that was the gist of the reports back then, yes (I'm thinking mostly December 2016). Of course, the likes of the NYTimes did an 180 (I'd call it a 360, but that's just me) and last year came out with this gem [1]: > Why the Discredited [Steele] Dossier Does Not Undercut the Russia Investigation (...) > No. The Mueller report does not present claims from the dossier as evidence, and many of the issues focused on by investigators did not come up in the dossier. "So, we were damn wrong on the "prostitutes" thing, someone will most likely go to prison for it (not us, fortunately), but trust us when we say this other bad thing about Trump!" On a more general note, it takes more and more mental, I don't even know how to call it, I guess hygiene is the word, to remain sane among all this stuff. I mean, as a reader of news and as a citizen (of the world, I'm not personally from the States) who wants to remain on top of things by staying educated on what's happening and why it is happening. It just isn't humanly possible anymore, the alienating forces have become too powerful. That also explains part of the article posted by the OP. [1] https://archive.ph/2fHH5#selection-313.0-313.70 https://archive.ph/2fHH5#selection-313.0-313.70