"Democratic Party / Hillary Clinton operatives were directly involved in the attempt to make Trump look like a Russian stooge."

Michael Van Der Galien reports in PJ Media,

Democratic Party / Hillary Clinton operatives were directly involved in the attempt to make Trump look like a Russian stooge. ...British ex-spy Christopher Steele shared more fake conspiracy theories with the FBI than just his infamous Steele dossier (with the pee story in it). At least three Steele assertions went to the Crossfire Hurricane team. Every single one of them was -- wait for it-- was untrue.

...This information was given to Steele, not by a Russian source, but by "two longtime Hillary Clinton operatives and liberal former journalists, Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer." In other words, Democratic Party / Hillary Clinton operatives were directly involved in the attempt to make Trump look like a Russian stooge.

Read more here.

Is Putin an omnipotent sorcerer?

David Harsanyi writes in The Federalist,

...But we know that not a single vote was altered in 2016. Russia has yet, as far as we know, to invent a mind-control ray. Every American voter’s free will was fully intact in 2016, as it will be in 2020. Acting as if Putin is an omnipotent sorcerer with the power to shift the vote count is nothing more than a transparently partisan attempt to delegitimize an election. Hearing about a politically motivated hack doesn’t nullify an election any more than hearing about a politically motivated “dossier” that’s filled with Russian-sourced rumor-mongering nullifies an election.

Muddying the waters to total impenetrability

Mark Steyn says go ahead with your conspiracy theories regarding the Mandolay Bay massacre. Law enforcement has now changed the story at least three times. Las Vegas, the most surveilled city on earth, has not released any footage of the killer.

Speaking of conspiracy theories, we are coming up on the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, at which time the final evidence is, by law, supposed to be released to the public. The CIA is opposing the release, asking for another 30 years! No way! Release all the information now!

Inventing conspiracy theories, embellishing the truth, and fomenting outrage

Krista Kafer writes in the Denver Post,

...Communicating complexity with accuracy, speed and dynamism without a script is challenging. Inventing conspiracy theories, embellishing the truth, and fomenting outrage requires comparatively less show prep. It may be entertaining, but it discredits the profession and distorts the truth.

In an environment where everyone is talking and few are listening, there is temptation to shout "Fire!" just to get attention. The 24-hour news cycle incentivizes sensationalism. We should not yield to it. Exaggeration eliminates proportion. When everything is terrible, nothing is terrible. When every disliked politician is another Hitler, it's only a matter of time before we can no longer recognize true evil among men.

...If that requires a little sensationalism to rally the troops, why not? Why have a measured discussion, for example, about the advantages and disadvantages of a primary versus a caucus system when it's so much more exciting to inflame passions? Some commentators and a certain politician have alleged corruption in the recent Colorado GOP selection of national delegates when there is no evidence of that whatsoever.

...Facts, perception, spin, error or deceit, there are lines in between that should not be crossed.

Read more here.

Lying liars lie habitually

Kevin Williamson makes the point in National Review that lying liars lie habitually. He is referring to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Does Hillary owe Trump and the nation an apology for falsely claiming that ISIS is using Donald Trump's statements as recruitment tools. Yes!

...Never mind what this says about Herself’s fitness for the presidency: We all know that she is morally, ethically, and intellectually unfit for the job. She’s unfit to manage a Walmart in Muleshoe, Texas. She’s unfit to have a route delivering the Buck County Courier Times. From cattle futures to bimbo eruptions to Internet auteurs inspiring terror attacks in Benghazi, anybody who is paying any attention understands that Herself’s relationship with the truth is a lot like her relationship with the Big Creep: all politics, a marriage of convenience.

This isn’t about Herself. This is about democracy.

It used to fall upon the news media to police this sort of thing, but they are today utterly incapable of doing so. So-called fact-checking sites such as PolitiFact are nests of intellectually dishonest partisan hackery, and even journalists who want to do the right thing have a very difficult time doing so in a world of infinite media choices. Cognitive bias is very powerful: When people have decided on a certain model of how the world is, they tend to take to heart stories that reinforce that view and to discount those that challenge it. That is one of the reasons why the Washington Post is retiring its “What Was Fake?” column dedicated to exposing popular hoaxes. You cannot reach the unreachable or educate the ineducable, especially those who do not want to be educated.

Unfortunately, that leaves those of us who want to see an honest and rigorous debate about public affairs largely dependent upon the moral character of politicians and other people in public life. It’s not working out too well: The reality of economic life in the early 21st century is incomprehensibly complex, and the real-world policy factors involved are myriad. But in the rhetoric of Bernie Sanders, this all comes down to two words: “rigged economy.” That isn’t an oversimplification — it’s a lie, and Sanders knows better. But he also knows that this stuff gets real hairy real quick — having seen the man in action, I very much doubt that he could explain to any informed person’s satisfaction what a derivative is or how a synthetic CDO comes into the world. His enthusiasts couldn’t, either. But it’s easier to traffic in conspiracy theory — which is what “rigged economy” is — than to deal with reality.

...If we want to have authentic democracy, then we have to insist that people in public life be truthful about the events and personalities of the real world. We have to tell the truth about the people who are running for president. We also have to tell the truth about bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Omar Abdel-Rahman, Timothy McVeigh, O. J. Simpson — and even Donald Trump.

Of course Mrs. Clinton owes Trump an apology. She owes the rest of the country an apology, too.

Read more here.

False beliefs

Jim Geraghty of National Review makes the point that both Republicans and Democrats seem more prone these days of social media prominance to believe in conspiracy theories about their opponents. However, Geraghty also asks,

Do you want to know what the single-most dangerous false belief in the country is right now?

“ISIL is not going to pose an existential threat to us,” President Obama said. “They are a dangerous organization like al Qaeda was, but we have hardened our defenses. Our homeland has never been more protected by more effective intelligence and law enforcement professionals at every level than they are now.”

Obama made that statement the afternoon of Wednesday, December 4, as two Islamist terrorists who had pledged loyalty to ISIS were shooting up San Bernardino.

Putting ugly rumors to rest

Where has all the gluten gone?

Now for some humor from The New Yorker:

Dear Internet Fact Checking:

Now that every product on the shelves claims to be gluten-free, I started to wonder what happened to all of that gluten that used to be in everything. Then I read on cashgab.com that someone has been buying up gluten (at bargain-basement prices) and storing it in caves in Utah, on the theory that—like eggs, which used to be considered unhealthy and now are considered O.K. to eat—gluten will someday be found to be perfectly healthy, food companies will want to put gluten back in their products, and buyers will find that one person has cornered the world’s gluten supply. Is this true?

Ravioliron, Rock Springs, Wyo.

Dear Ravioliron:

As usual, cashgab.com is, if we may put it this way, on the money. Where has all the gluten gone? Is it just a coincidence that the same question was raised (hidingstuff.com) about the eventual destination of the trans fats that so many products claimed to have rid themselves of? What about reports (photosquashed.com) that astronauts took pictures from space of quivering mountains of trans fats in the Chihuahuan Desert, and that the pictures were suppressed because of pressure from the Trilateral Commission? As if this weren’t proof enough, trucks have definitely been seen driving through Utah (eyeballer.com). Why else would trucks drive through Utah? Is it just a coincidence that Utah ranks fourteenth among the states for number of usable caves? It is hardly insignificant that when George Soros was asked whether he was trying to corner the gluten market, he said, and we quote, “What a stupid question!” (cashgab.com).

Thanks to American Digest