Listen, Donald Trump understands that the Senate Intelligence Committee serves an important function. He just doesn’t think its resources are being allocated properly and figures their time could be better spent investigating pretty much anything other than Russia.
On Wednesday, at a news conference, committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said “there is consensus among members and staff that we trust the conclusions of the ICA.” In other words, the committee accepts and concurs with the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia was behind hackings of the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign and also the contention that Moscow attempted to exploit public opinion by planting false information, a whole lot of which using fake social media accounts. Additionally, he said this about the prospect of ongoing Kremlin-sponsored activity: “you can’t walk away from this and believe that Russia’s not currently active.”
Right. Needless to say, none of that is exactly what Trump wants to hear, especially after Wednesday when the media jumped on reports that Tillerson had once referred to him as a “f&*%ing moron” and so, bright and early on Thursday morning, the President took to Twitter to expose the “real” threat to this country: the free press.
Here’s Trump:
There’s Donald Trump (who, you’re reminded, is the President) suggesting that lawmakers should launch an investigation into the media whenever the media prints something he doesn’t like. That’s what that is.
Let’s do a quick reality check. “So much of our news” is not “just made up.” That’s a lie. The news is spun. The news is slanted. But the news is not just “made up.” And to the extent you think it is, you would be delusional to believe that every, single negative story written about Donald Trump is “made up.” That’s patently absurd. It is not a coincidence that every reputable news network in the country seems to think he is a complete idiot. It is also not a coincidence that the only “news” networks that support him have, at best, a history of buffoonery (Fox) and at worst, are outright propaganda channels (Breitbart).
I realize all of this goes without saying for most Americans, but unfortunately, large swaths of the electorate have been brainwashed unto believing that nothing which doesn’t emanate from Fox or worse, from some fringe blog, is real. That is a truly bizarre state of affairs because in the case of the fringe blogs, do note that this is a group whose ideological “leader” (although a lot of them wouldn’t admit this) is Alex Jones, a man who says things like this:
For Donald Trump, that’s what “real” news is. And on the off chance anyone has forgotten, here’s Trump saying as much and telling that very same Alex Jones how his “reputation is amazing”:
Just to drive the point home here, Donald Trump thinks the Senate Intelligence Committee should be investigating media outlets like CNN and NBC, and yet he thinks Alex Jones – a man who this very week pushed all manner of absurd conspiracy theories about Las Vegas which I won’t even dignify here – has an “amazing reputation.”
Nothing further.
THE MOST ABSURD thing is we allow this man to represent the United States of America!
“The Donald” of Tillerson’s honest, but to open – moron classification is a cracked kettle calling the pot dented. Trump is smart enough to learn and repeat as talking points some of the primary problems our country faces, but not smart enough to manage their effective solutions – especially those that don’t benefit him directly. He’s smart enough to divert attention from his daily CFs, but not smart enough to limit himself from making those CFs in advance. His failure to learn from his mistakes, repeating them on Twitter daily – is the best description of Trump’s mental capabilities and its associated illnesses. A person of less wealth would have institutionalized for treatment long ago.
However, Trump is correct that the US media has serious credibility and integrity problems – not just those he points out, but most if not all. The days of independent documented source journalism are long gone. The day when news consumers with evolutionary selected fine tuned critical thinking skills – is equally passed. Today, any news of consequence will have paid spin or be paid content. Couple these for profit biases, with human personal opinion (generally poorly based) bias and its a wonder that the majority knows where the sun will rise each day (sadly a significant number of today’s college students don’t know). However, to think the Senate (another “paid content” enterprise itself) can investigate anything effectively and or in their voters best interest is… well moronic. Tillerson – though a tad slow on the uptake, is smart enough to know Trump’s abilities and or the lack thereof.
Trying to look at the bright side of our current circumstances in the US in light of the election of the unqualified Donald Trump (and in light of negative baggage laden opposing candidate) the conclusion I come to is that thanks to Trump, anyone with above moronic intellectual ability (automatically excluding Trump and many of his followers) can (if they chose to actually look) see just how far from a democracy (or at least one we were taught to think of our Democracy was) and how limited (as opposed to free) a society the US has become. Just as clearly we should see just how completely corrupted its for profit media, election and our systems of elected governance have become.
Now that it has become so painfully obvious of how far the US has strayed from its founding ideals (credit where credit is due – thanks Trump Administration), we now have the opportunity to correct our misdirections and the sources of their misdirection. Or, we can sit back and naively think that a corrupted system (media, election industry, and elected governance) with massive self-interest in the status quo – can correct itself.