Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

This blog will pay for itself.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

We still have time to mess this up!

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

T R E 4 5 O N

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Excellent (Depressing) Read: “The Seth Rich conspiracy shows how fake news still works”

Excellent (Depressing) Read: “The Seth Rich conspiracy shows how fake news still works”

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Today, Dave Weigel published a story in the Washington Post on “The life and death of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory”:

When Seth Rich’s Gmail account received an alert this week from Mega.com, attempting to start a new account on a website created by the New Zealand-based Internet businessman and convicted hacker Kim Dotcom, his family knew that something was off.

Over seven frenzied days, Dotcom had become a leading purveyor of the theory that Rich, a staffer at the Democratic National Committee who was shot dead near his home in Northeast Washington last summer, had supplied DNC documents to WikiLeaks and was killed as a result. Multiple security analysts and an FBI investigation have tied the release to hackers with ties to Russia. D.C. police have said repeatedly that they think Rich was slain in a random robbery attempt…

All that began to unravel Tuesday afternoon when Fox News retracted a story that had claimed the same Rich-WikiLeaks connection, telling readers that the article was “not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.” Fox News did not respond to a request for comment, but Dotcom wrote on his website that he would not speak further about his allegations…

Of course, this being the internet (and certain people & networks happy to be ghouls for profit) the morbid feasting on other peoples’ tragedy will never actually end.

Here’s Weigel’s original story, on May 20:

On July 10, at 4:19 a.m., gunfire was detected in the District’s Bloomingdale neighborhood. Not five minutes later, police found Seth Rich, a 27-year-old Democratic National Committee staffer, lying on the ground, dying from a bullet wound to his back. A conscious Rich was transported to the hospital; by daybreak, he was dead.

Nearly one year later, Rich’s death remains one of America’s thousands of unsolved murders — and the focus of endless conspiracy theories, spread this past week by Fox News, alt-right social media, a local D.C. news station and the Russian embassy in Britain. The reemergence of the conspiracy theory this week, which did not lack for real news, revealed plenty about the fake news ecosystem (or to use BuzzFeed’s useful phrase, “the upside-down media”) in the Trump era. It also happened to cause untold pain for the Rich family…

TV news can be an easy mark. This iteration of the Seth Rich story started when the District’s own Fox 5 ran a Monday night “exclusive,” citing one source — a Fox New legal commentator, Rod Wheeler — for a “big break in the investigation.” Reporter Marina Marraco reported that “conspiracy theories” could “be proven right,” as Wheeler was saying what had been rumored since last year: Rich might have leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks, making him the target of an assassination…

Within 24 hours, reporters at NBC News, CNN and The Washington Post had debunked the story. First, Rich’s family quickly corrected the idea that Wheeler was on their payroll; he was hired by Ed Butowsky, a Texas businessman who had grown interested in the case. Next, Wheeler told CNN he hadn’t actually obtained information linking Rich to WikiLeaks — Fox 5, he insisted, had told him to say so…

Most forms of reporting have guardrails that this story would have crashed against. Had the channel waited to run the story until the family or the police weighed in, it couldn’t have aired. But that’s the problem — there’s a fluff allowance on TV, one that lets sensational videos through even if they’ve not been fully vetted…

Fake news has weakened on Facebook, but its bots still own Twitter. With very little fanfare, likely a result of the backlash it got from conservatives after Gawker revealed its editorial policy for newsfeeds, Facebook has seriously cracked down on the ability of conspiracy and clickbait sites to make stories trend. There’s been no similar crackdown on Twitter, where conspiracy theorists can still coordinate, start trends, and benefit when bots chime in…

Debunking a story still doesn’t end it. Sean Hannity, who’s now a sort of elder statesman in Fox News’s prime time lineup, devoted parts of three episodes this week to the Rich story…

As the phrase goes: That escalated quickly…

Never thought I’d be recommending anything by John Podhoretz, but this piece is actually worth a read:

… Although, with any justice, it may end the public career of Sean Hannity…

… While the World’s Dumbest Professional Republicans will do their best to keep the story churning.

There’s stuff circulating at the top of every septic tank, too also.

Reader Interactions

23Comments

  2. 2.

    Ian G.

    I found “stuff on the internet” about how the Jews, Freemasons, and Lizard People were responsible for 9/11. Why aren’t we investigating THAT?

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    Glimpse of a possible not so distant future here? (emphasis added)

    Troops guarded federal buildings in Brazil’s capital early Thursday as the president struggles to hang onto power amid an outcry over corruption allegations and after clashes between police and protesters demanding his resignation forced the evacuations of several ministries.

    With tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets and lawmakers in Congress calling for his ouster, President Michel Temer ordered soldiers deployed in Brasilia on Wednesday. The Defence Ministry said 1,500 soldiers were being used.
    [snip]
    Temer is struggling to retain power after the release of a recording that appears to capture him approving hush money for a convicted former lawmaker. Brazil’s top court is investigating him for alleged obstruction of justice and involvement in passive corruption. The president has denied wrongdoing and insists he will not resign. Source

  4. 4.

    clay

    I hope the Rich family sues the fuck out of Hannity, that dumb Kiwi (not gonna type his dumb name), and anyone else who caused them unnecessary grief.

    In lighter news, Rep. Blake Farenthold looks like a cartoon caricature of himself.

  5. 5.

    hovercraft

    @Ian G.:

    I found “stuff on the internet” about how the Jews, Freemasons, and Lizard People were responsible for 9/11. Why aren’t we investigating THAT?

    Wow!
    I found stuff on the internet saying that Blake Farthole and Sean Whiner Halfabrain rape and murder children, why hasn’t that been investigated? People have questions!

    Ghouls, fucking ghouls.

  6. 6.

    Ocotillo

    Seeing how it is all projection with these people, if a low level Trumpster is discovered to be leaking, don’t be surprised if they turn up dead.

  7. 7.

    Alain the site fixer

    So sorry to bigfoot you AL! Since it’s a warning for folks, I’m leaning towards leaving it up, but I find this post to be much more interesting!

  8. 8.

    hovercraft

    @Ocotillo:

    Seeing how it is all projection with these people, if a low level Trumpster is discovered to be leaking, don’t be surprised if they turn up dead.

    The sad thing is that I can totally see his thug/body man Keith Schiller doing it.

  9. 9.

    geg6

    I hope the Rich family sues the living shit out of these assholes. This is just so far beyond disgusting that I can’t deal with it anymore. Just horrible. What a nightmare for the family. Bad enough they have lost a son, but now to deal with trash like that creepy New Zealander and the horrible Sean Hannity. I hate these people so much.

  10. 10.

    Wyatt Derp

    Honestly, doesn’t Farenthold look like the guy most Trump fans beat up and stole lunch money from?

  16. 16.

    hovercraft

    @Gin & Tonic: @SiubhanDuinne:

    His behavior is unsurprising, he is who he always both told us and showed us he is, an uncouth thug with no sense of decency, it’s all about him, and he’ll shove anyone who tries to get in his way he must be the center of attention at all times. He’s probably pissed off because he saw the pictures of the Obama Merkel lovefest this morning and the size of the crowd. He knows that the only way a crowd like that would gather for him any where in Europe would be to protest against him.
    Asshole gonna asshole.

  17. 17.

    Elizabelle

    It is so important to be combating this stuff. Add me to the people who want to see Hannity – and Fox News — sued up the wazoo. Cannot imagine being Seth Rich’s family, losing a wonderful son in young adulthood, and then having these conspiracy theorist ghouls descend to compound the pain and besmirch Seth’s memory.

    Burn them to the ground.

    No foothold for this fake news; it’s dangerous. We could not have Trump without it. Dave Weigel did a great job.

    As did Margaret Sullivan, in an article 2 days ago. She called Hannity and Newt Gingrich out, by name, and early in the story. The Washington Post’s gain is the FTF NYTime’s loss.

    WaPost, Margaret Sullivan: The Seth Rich lie, and how the corrosion of reality should worry every American

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    Long excerpt, for those who don’t have a WaPost subscription. Margaret Sullivan was unrelenting in making her point, and did not pull any “both sides” shit that lesser journalists do.

    Margaret Sullivan: The Seth Rich lie …

    Discusses Alex Jones’ Infowars “cesspool of destructive conspiracy theories” getting a temporary WH press credential on Monday. Turns to Fox News, with the Seth Rich story propagated heavily by Hannity. [Fox retracted the story on Tuesday, AFTER Sullivan’s column ran.] Also that Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News on Sunday, two days before the retraction,

    “squandering what remains of his own credibility … Decent people should shun both Hannity and Gingrich.

    The Seth Rich lie has become the new Comet Ping Pong — another Washington-based conspiracy theory …. Crazy, baseless and dangerous.

    … we have in the White House a president who was the most prominent promoter of the “birther” lies against Obama, which set out to delegitimize a presidency and inflame racial hatred.

    Trump’s own record of truth-support is far from exemplary. This is a president whose secretary of state has excluded reporters from his public activities repeatedly and with impunity. The same president who [lied about the size of his inaugural crowds]. The same president who reportedly told the director of the FBI of his desire to jail reporters, who has called the mainstream press “the enemy of the people,” and who cozies up to journalist-jailing heads of state.

    “Fake news,” as it is erroneously called sometimes, seemed like a curiosity only a few months ago — something that errant Macedonian teenagers spread on Facebook for profit, and which might or might not have affected the presidential election. (For example, the claim that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump.)

    Then it became the president’s favorite way to demean the reality-based press, and cast doubt on professional journalism.

    “The speed with which the term became polarized and in fact a rhetorical weapon illustrates how efficient the conservative media machine has become,” George Washington University professor Nikki Usher told me earlier this year.

    We know now that it’s far worse than that. Given tacit or explicit approval by the administration, this anti-truth movement — championed by Jones, a Trump shill — erodes reason and reality. And those are the basis for a functioning democracy.

    The growing absence of truth should worry every American citizen.

    “If everybody always lies to you . . . nobody believes anything any longer,” said Hannah Arendt, a German American political theorist. “And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

    So if you’re wondering why bottom-dwelling conspiracy theorists are allowed in the briefing room, or why Trump insiders promote lies about a young man’s death, you have your answer.

  20. 20.

    TenguPhule

    @Ocotillo:

    Seeing how it is all projection with these people, if a low level Trumpster is discovered to be leaking, don’t be surprised if they turn up dead.

    Predicted it months ago.

    Any crime a Republican accuses others of, they are guilty of.

    No exceptions.

  21. 21.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @clay: Cosign. Remember, the SeanHannitzer is the opposite of hand-sanitizer: let it touch you once & you feel filthy for weeks.till they reah the Hot Zone where

    InsHannity’s thoughts are as ever of how he can fuck over the rabble while fattening his own bank account. And his “prayers” sink right down to the Hot Zone where skulks the recently-arrived Father of Neo-Fascist Lies, Be-Ailes-ebub.

  22. 22.

    Uncle Cosmo

    (Couldn’t edit #21 to remove extraneous bytes at the end of 1st para. FYWP & FYTFH whatever website is lobotomizing my browser…).

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