I finally had to carefully transcribe Janine Jackson’s brilliant analysis of the depth of our media-aided American dilemma, from her CounterSpin podcast of September 18, 2020. I suppose the reason we can’t read something this important to our democracy in Jeff Bezos’s beacon of freedom, or in the Grey Lady, is self-evident. But, still… Janine Jackson:

Josh Cho lays it out plainly on FAIR.org:

When the president of the United States has:

• explicitly declared his intentions to withhold federal election funding from states that are trying to make it easier to vote during a pandemic;
• appointed a major donor with conflicts of interest to sabotage the US Postal Service;
• claimed that the defeat of lawsuits aimed at disenfranchising voters is the “biggest risk” to his reelection bid;
• deputized 50,000 “poll watchers” to intimidate people;
• advised his supporters to commit the felony of double voting;
• proposed postponing the elections;
•  preemptively cast election results into doubt by suggesting the results may not be legitimate; and
• repeatedly refused to state whether he would concede the election in the event of a loss;

Well, then the evidence threshold has been more than satisfied for journalists to declare that he is trying to steal the 2020 election. Journalists and newsrooms have an obligation to report that the most powerful person in the country is trying to subvert the democratic process, a failure to do so is journalistic malpractice.

Yet, while you can find several op-eds pointing out that Donald Trump is acting to steal the 2020 election, for serious news reporters it remains, and one suspects, will continue to remain, a theoretical possibility.

Cho searched articles in the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Houston Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, LA Times and USA Today from July 7^th to September 7^th and found various scenarios of how Trump could steal the election, columns wondering what might happen if Trump refused to concede the election and reports on Democratic politicians asserting that Trump is trying to steal the election, but not a single news article treating it as something that is happening.

And along with stories on Democratic party politicians like Beato O’Rourke warning of what might happen, corporate media have made space for Trump to air his accusations that it’s Democrats who are trying to commit election theft. Encouraging any who would want to to see it all as a story of partisan dispute.

Maybe worst, while a number of stories explore scenarios, Cho found no articles calling for action, conveying a presumption that citizens are supposed to be passive spectators and not active participants.

Legal scholars note that the peaceful succession of power relies more on norms than on laws or institutions, and as we have learned norms mean nothing to Donald Trump and every time he runs roughshod over another of them corporate elite “democracy dies in darkness” news media cover for it with palaver about how he’s breaking with tradition.

The cowardice is shocking, but get ready for the hypocrisy if Trump, as one can only wish, loses and the same corporate press corps claim they’re the ones who pulled us back from the precipice.

History will look unkindly also on things like the Associated Press’s September 4^th election season launch piece which multiple critics noted could stand as an emblem of elite media’s abdication of duty in the Trump era. Joe Biden and Donald Trump, AP told readers, offer “dueling versions of reality.”

Yeah.

AP chief political reporter Steve Peeples wrote: “on the campaign trail with President Donald Trump. the pandemic is largely over, the economy is roaring back and murderous mobs are infiltrating America’s suburbs. With Democrat Joe Biden. the pandemic is raging, the economy isn’t lifting the working class and systemic racism threatens black lives across America.”

Oh, those “dizzyingly different versions of reality,” laments the piece, before adding a note that should enter textbooks:

“all the conflicting messages carry at least a sliver of truth, some much more than others.”

For a reporter, to find yourself translating away from the coherent like that might be a sign you should turn to a different profession. For readers, it’s a sure sign to turn the page.

And finally, the both-sideism that plagues elite journalism extends beyond partisanship per se, writer/organizer Dorothy Benz called out a Washing Post piece from late August “US Political Divide Becomes Increasingly Violent, Rattling Activists and Police.”

Her high school English teacher, Benz noted, would have taken a red pen to that title, pointing out that divides can’t be violent, only people can. So people on both sides of a divide are becoming violent is what the Post meant, and that’s the real problem. The piece describes an armed right wing attack on a voter registration rally sponsored by a Democratic Congressional candidate in Tyler, Texas.

Hundreds of armed people descended on the peaceful crowd, yelling obscenities and physically assaulting them. The piece describes the scene as “scuffling”, downplaying the level of violence and intimidation involved in the attack and suggesting that both sides contributed to it.

The article refers to a “spate of exchanges”, and a “series of disturbances” to describe what is a pattern of right-wing political violence directed directed at protests against police brutality. Later on the assault in Tyler, Texas is summed up as an incident where “brawls erupted.”

Worst of all, Benz notes, the Post manages to talk about various armed attacks on people protesting police violence without ever using the words racism, racist or white supremacy. The US is teetering on the brink of white supremacist-fueled authoritarianism. Instead of raising the alarm, the Washington Post all but shrugs, concluding this piece:

“with so many people showing up armed, including growing numbers of left-wing social justice activists, police are warning people that they need to understand the risks associated with modern-day protests and political activity.”

Thus, democratic protest is treated like some kind of luxury extreme sport where you need to consider carefully whether or not to participate, and if you get hurt, it’s your own fault.

Let’s stipulate that mere facts are not as exciting as a wildly spreading rumor/movement based on Pizzagate (and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) involving a child-sex trafficking ring run by powerful, cannibalistic Satan-worshipping pedophiles. POTUS has a brand new talking point with an impressively authentic-sounding ring to it: unsolicited ballots.

An unfair election, says the president, will result from the millions of “unsolicited ballots” being mailed, in some states, to every registered voter. The resulting “rigged election” is the only way, he insists, that the most popular president in history can be robbed of his rightful second term. Massive fraud against Trump is the only way Trump can lose an election he won last time by a total of 78,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

It hurts me every time I hear a report on the president’s lying claim (tactfully reported as “baseless” or “false”) about widespread voter fraud that fails to cite the incidence of actual voter fraud in American elections. We sometimes hear that such fraud is rare, less than 1%.

What we almost never hear that the incidence of voter fraud in America is much, much, much less than

one ten-thousandth of one percent.

Math is confusing, I know. But the available facts show that for a fraud rate of anywhere close to 1% we’d have to multiply the proven rate of fraud (committed by partisans from both sides, mind you) by 10,000 or more. That’s really, really, really less than 1%.

A separate but related question: which political party, based on recent history, their claims about voting and their votes in every voting-related case, is more likely to engage in voter fraud? One party is seeking to make voting easier during a pandemic and to have every vote counted, the other party openly relies on a strategy of making sure as many opponents (‘enemy’ voters) as possible do not get to vote.

In 2016 there were 33,000,000 mail-in ballots, of the more than 138,000,000 votes cast. If every incident of 2016 voter fraud cited by the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation (62) had happened in mail-in ballots, and was committed by Democrats, the anti-Trump fraud rate would jump to an incidence of 1 in every 532,000 votes cast. 1/532,000 is nowhere near one percent (1/100), or a tenth of one percent (1/1000), or a hundredth of one percent (1/10,000). It would be measured in thousandths of a percent.

Why is it so hard to get this infinitesimally small number into the public “discussion” about an imaginary tsunami of voter fraud committed in the name of vicious pedophile cannibals?

Here’s an intelligent short reply to Mr. Trump’s lie about a rigged election (which does not trouble listeners with the microscopic rate of proven voter fraud):

Admittedly, I hate the guy, a pugnacious, self-righteous, lying partisan bully. But this less than three minute clip gives ten or eleven pretty vivid examples of what a lying fraud Donald Trump’s top law enforcement officer, Bill Barr, is. Based on his stellar work on behalf of George H. W. Bush, permanently covering up the remnants of the Iran-Contra scandal, it appears he’s been a duplicitous partisan for decades.

The Washington Post, currently owned by the world’s greediest man, notorious pandemic profiteer and anti-labor hardliner Jeff Bezos, still refuses to use the common and obvious word “lie” to describe false statements made by powerful men with a deliberate intent to deceive, but, of course, the rest of us can.

A man who lies as much as Bill Barr, (or Donald John Trump, for that matter,) may appropriately be described as a liar, or, if one were determined to be scrupulously polite, said to “lack candor” as federal Judge Reggie Walton wrote of Barr in March when he ordered production of the un-redacted Mueller Report because he did not believe Barr’s representations about its contents or the proffered reasons for the many redactions [1].

The short clip above presents one demonstrable and destructive lie after another by the Attorney General, the two minute tour of his characteristic mendacity. The lies are presented in the video with an almost New York Times-like delicacy, tactful, nuance-qualified understatement bordering on muteness. (Particularly in this age of conclusory five second sound bytes.)

The NYT’s circumspect, always scrupulously balanced reporting style brings to mind this great headline from the coffee table history edition of The Onion (America’s Finest News Source). The Grey Lady could not have written it better:

That said, The New York Times does some excellent, crucial reporting. It detailed specific examples of Barr’s seemingly subtle lies about the Mueller Report during the month Barr held it back. The Times analyzed Barr’s untruthfulness in detail that few others provided. I can’t knock their investigative reporting, which is often vital and important (though best taken in conjunction with other news sources). Wikipedia summarizes:

 The New York Times reported instances in which the Barr letter omitted information and quoted sentence fragments out of context in ways that significantly altered the findings in the report, including:^[20]

• Omission of language that indicated Trump could be subject to indictment after leaving office, inaccurately suggesting that Trump was “totally exonerated”.^[27][28][29]
• A sentence fragment described only one possible motive for Trump to obstruct justice, while the Mueller Report listed multiple possible motives.
• Omission of words and a full sentence that twice suggested there was knowing and complicit behavior between the Trump campaign and Russians that stopped short of direct coordination, which may constitute conspiracy.

And, not for nothing, speaking of liars — Mr. Trump once again had the Center for Disease Control take down its guidance on controlling the spread of the pandemic, this time removing the known fact that the disease is spread by airborne particles (something Trump has known since at least February– as he told Bob Woodward on 2/7). The CDC took the guidance off its website yesterday, stating that it had been posted “in error”.

So 200,000 dead Americans, by far the most of any nation, 20% of the world’s dead from COVID-19, a death rate 500% higher than our proportion of the world’s population (4%) and NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

After all, voter fraud may DOUBLE in 2020– to 0.000008%. YOW!!!

Eight hundred-thousandths of one percent!!!

And the race is tighter than expected in every swing state!

[1] The New York Times, in an article entitled Judge Calls Barr’s Handling of Mueller Report ‘Distorted’ and ‘Misleading’ 

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday sharply criticized Attorney General William P. Barr’s handling of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, saying that Mr. Barr put forward a “distorted” and “misleading” account of its findings and lacked credibility on the topic.

Mr. Barr could not be trusted, Judge Reggie B. Walton said, citing “inconsistencies” between the attorney general’s statements about the report when it was secret and its actual contents that turned out to be more damaging to President Trump. Mr. Barr’s “lack of candor” called into question his “credibility and, in turn, the department’s” assurances to the court, Judge Walton said.

Naturally, like every other story involving the president or his myrmidons, there has been virtually no media follow-up on the story. The DOJ produced the un-redacted report and Judge Walton apparently read it and had questions for the DOJ about redactions seemingly made to cover up findings damaging to the president. Walton was to hold a hearing, as of a few weeks back, if the DOJ did not give him sufficient written explanation for the redactions that troubled him.

We have no attention span here in the 24/7 shit-storm we are living in, with hundred-armed media savvy shit-gibbons constantly flinging the nasty stuff to profit-driven “news” entities Perhaps Senior District Court Judge Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, was satisfied with Barr’s answers; maybe not.

It seems that, beyond citing Barr’s lack of credibility, Judge Walton will not press the DOJ any further on Barr’s calculatedly misleading spin of Mueller’s conclusions, since there appears to have been a legal rationale offered for at least some of it.

Oh, well, at least we have the internet, that fountain of immediate information:

from historian Heather Cox Richardson. last night:

Midday, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned the House Homeland Security Committee that “the intelligence community consensus is that Russia continues to try to influence our elections” by spreading disinformation through social media, online journals, and so on. Russians are “very active” in their attempts to undermine Biden’s campaign. They are trying to “sow divisiveness and discord” and “primarily to denigrate Vice President Biden and what the Russians see as kind of an anti-Russian establishment.”

Russians are spreading the idea that mail-in ballots are insecure, and that Biden is slipping mentally—both stories Trump echoes.

Trump took to Twitter to argue with his FBI director. “But Chris, you don’t see any activity from China, even though it is a FAR greater threat than Russia, Russia, Russia. They will both, plus others, be able to interfere in our 2020 Election with our totally vulnerable Unsolicited (Counterfeit?) Ballot Scam. Check it out!”

The president’s attempt to deflect attention from Russia while putting it on China is more disinformation. Department of Homeland Security whistleblower Brian Murphy last week said that DHS acting Director Chad Wolf told him “to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran. Mr. Wolf stated that these instructions specifically originated from White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.”

source

It bears repeating, frequency of voter-fraud in the USA, using the Heritage Foundation’s data, is less than one in 2,000,000 votes, about 4 hundred-thousandths of 1%. 0.00004%

You’d need an electron microscope to see a fraction of a percentage point so infinitesimal.

In other news:

AG Bill Barr, in a speech the other day, as he continues to “debunk” (and promise to prosecute) the “criminal” origins (oringes) of “Russiagate,” the multiple investigations into documented Russian pro-Trump interference in the 2016 election, made the inflammatory comment that Covid-19 stay-at home orders are “the greatest intrusion on our civil liberties” since slavery.

Enough said about that demented ad lib. Here’s the well-expressed objection to AG Barr as Attorney General:

The concern of Barr’s critics—ourselves included—is that Barr has exercised his undoubted supervisory powers in an improper, even corrupt, fashion, and that he has done so in a sustained effort to undermine the results of Robert Mueller’s investigation. The criticism is that he has exercised those powers to frustrate legitimate investigations and prosecutions. And it is that he has done all of this not because of legitimate concerns about the uniformity of justice or fairness to defendants generally but to protect individuals close to the president who appointed him and to serve Trump’s personal and political interests in attacking investigations of himself.

We aren’t saying Barr is deploying powers he doesn’t have or that it is wrong for attorney generals to have such powers and even to use them; we’re saying he has abused powers he certainly does have and that attorneys general need to have.

source

Of course, as we learned during the president’s impeachment “trial” (witness and evidence-free, like any good American trial should be) Abuse of Power is not a legal reason to remove somebody from office, as long as there is a one vote party-line majority to keep the person there.

Or, as any young Trump supporter, applauding Barr’s latest deranged pronouncements about justice might say “suck it, cuck!”

Chief Justice/swing vote John Roberts decides who is president after Trump contests results of the 2020 election.

With lawsuit after lawsuit in state after state, claiming potential for massive fraud in expanded voting due to the pandemic (without evidence), Mr. Trump and his janissaries [1] are attempting to suppress the vote and once again win the Electoral College.

Absence of evidence for Trump’s debunked voter-fraud claims doesn’t seem to matter in the lawsuits the president is pursuing to restrict voting in states trying to expand it safely during a pandemic. The suits are all moving forward, ready to be appealed if lost. 

I suppose I must leave aside the following questions for the moment:

If the actual prevalence of fraud is a microscopic fraction of one percent, how are these voter-fraud based cases allowed to go forward as though they’re credible claims? 

Why is that statistically insignificant nano-percentage of voter fraud not a major, constant talking point and a decisive legal rebuttal of Trump’s baseless claims?

This chilling piece by Fareed Zakaria lays out a plausible scenario for John Roberts, the corporatist swing vote on the Supreme Court, deciding, in the face of numerous Trump federal lawsuits and appeals that reach our highest court, who will be the 46th president of the United States.

Here is the article Zakaria cites: How Trump Could Refuse to Go. From that article:

Nominally, Trump and his political sycophants are trying to stop state and local officials from making voting-by-mail more accessible during a pandemic. But, in fact, the real aim is simply to push into the public sphere the false claims that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud. Each court battle or legislative fight gives them the opportunity to keep sowing those doubts, ready to be harvested later.

[1] janissary:

a member of the Turkish infantry forming the Sultan’s guard between the 14th and 19th centuries.

a devoted follower or supporter.