I for one didn't know what the devil the Seth Rich conspiracies were all about, so this story was helpful. Spoiler 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, which has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the so-called private investigator who led this dive back into the fever swamp. Here's what we learned. 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. “You have information that could link Seth Rich to WikiLeaks?” asked Marraco. “Absolutely. Yeah. That's confirmed,” said Wheeler, who Fox 5 identified as the Rich family's investigator. 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. Marraco did not cite any sources except Wheeler — not the Rich family, not D.C. police, not the mayor's office, not the DNC. Wheeler, a very occasional TV pundit, was noticeably skimpy on details, suggesting he had a source who'd told him eyeball-to-eyeball that Rich's computer was in lock-up and that it had evidence of WikiLeaks contact. But he was murky on whether D.C. police or the FBI allegedly had the laptop, and the family quickly reported that neither did. 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. That's why a quick perusal of local news will often find segments devoted to viral videos, a phenomenon Nathan Fielder tested in an episode of his gonzo series “Nathan For You.” In retrospect, it seems natural for the fake story to resurface via a small TV station. But what caused it to surface at all? 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. That happened this week, in a big way. The theory that Rich must have been killed by nefarious forces at the Democratic National Committee, as punishment for his betrayal to WikiLeaks, has bubbled long enough to have several memes ready for the latest eruption. Even before the Fox5 segment, the #SethRich and #HisNameWasSethRich hashtag were active; the latest “break” in the story came when Robbin Young, a former model who calls herself a “Bond Girl” on the strength of a small role in “For Your Eyes Only,” published unverified messages that she claimed showed the hacker Guccifer 2.0 crediting Rich for the leak. The hashtag took off in the wake of the Fox5 report. A familiar swirl of conservative media — the Drudge Report, Breitbart — ran people-are-saying updates on how Rich's name was trending. It was that attention, ironically, that caused Wheeler to be debunked. And it was debunked so quickly that adherents of the theory didn't realize that the new “break” made no sense. Wasn't Guccifer the pass-through for the hacked emails? Why would Rich be contacting WikiLeaks? The most effective conspiracy theories target both the left and alt-right. What's often forgotten about the DNC hack is how banal the emails were. There were three major hacks of the Democrats' political operation. They were the DNC hack, released by WikiLeaks on July 22 last year; the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) hack, released on Aug. 12; and the hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails, which were released in a daily dump throughout October. The resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz during the Democrats' convention fed into the idea that the DNC hack must have been devastating, revealing — in the words of Fox News conspiracy theorist Sean Hannity — that the “DNC was conspiring to hurt Bernie Sanders and help Hillary Clinton win the nomination.” That's not what the emails revealed. In fact, Wasserman Schultz's mismanagement of the DNC, and personal bias toward Hillary Clinton, had been known, and a sore spot for supporters of Sanders, long before the hack. Wasserman Schultz scheduled debates late in the process, and had to be pushed by the Sanders campaign to allow a debate before the New York primary. Clinton, who'd narrowly lost the 2008 primary, came into 2016 with the vast majority of endorsements from party leaders — not actually a factor under the DNC's control. What the emails found was that in May, after Sanders had no serious chance at the nomination, some DNC staffers got irresponsibly snarky and irritated. On May 1, for example, Wasserman Schultz reacted to news that Sanders would seek to contest the nomination at the convention by writing “so much for a traditional presumptive nominee.” But by May 1, Clinton had a lead in the delegate count and popular vote that was not going to be outpaced by Sanders, even if he won a landslide in California's looming primary. The theory that Rich was offended by these emails assumes that 1) he saw them, which is not suggested by any of the emails' headers, and that 2) he would have interpreted exasperated emails in May as proof of anti-Sanders perfidy that the world needed to see. This doesn't comport with reality — but it is attractive to the most die-hard progressive foes of Clinton. The Rich conspiracy thrived not just because fringe conservatives liked the idea of a break in the “Clinton body count” theory, but that the idea that someone would murder a leaker to cover up a conspiracy against Bernie Sanders would justify so much angst. Briefly, before Wheeler recanted his story, the Young Turks network's “Jimmy Dore Show” chewed over the revelation that Rich was in contact with WikiLeaks. And a largely frivolous lawsuit against the DNC — announced in July, and playing out in a Florida court now — has been aggressively covered by the Russian propaganda network RT. (Among the finer points of the lawsuit is that it seeks damages against the DNC for allowing itself to be hacked.) Dore's show has backed away from the story since Wednesday. RT, unsurprisingly, has not. 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. The first of these episodes ended in a wreck, with Wheeler giving his last public interview to date, recanting much of his story about Rich and babbling about how a credible source told him a story consistent with, perhaps, Rich having emailed WikiLeaks. Rush Limbaugh, who discussed the story this week, was just as ready to roll over the facts. After playing a clip of the debunked Wheeler story, in which the investigator claimed that authorities were preventing him from probing the Rich-WikiLeaks connection, Limbaugh claimed that the hacked emails had also been locked up. “Nobody has seen the 44,000 emails! They're on this guy's laptop.” But everyone who's wanted to has seen those emails — they have been on WikiLeaks's servers since last year. The absolute faith that there will one day be proof of this conspiracy theory — proof that Democrats carried out a political murder to punish a leak that had already happened — is impervious to reality. It's bound to attract opportunists. On Saturday, Hannity perked up when he saw the accused copyright violator Kim Dotcom, who is facing extradition, claiming — out of nowhere — that he would break the story wide open. So: Dotcom, who is facing extradition from New Zealand to America, and who has personally blamed Barack Obama for his legal trouble, claims in May 2017 that he knew crucial details about a political murder from July 2016. Why would he have sat on that during a hotly contested election, one that looked until the last minute to be queuing up Obama's chosen successor? None of it makes sense. That means we're never going to stop hearing about it.
Also hilarious continued usage of snowflake, despite their president whining about being treated unfairly. Republicans in the mainstream really do come off as big time fucking losers.
The White House will cancel your visit 3 days beforehand anyway - that's what happened to me last month.
Sending out a Hanukkah letter pissed off his supporters so I'm really looking forward to their reaction to this photo.
Trump has claimed he's never asked god for forgiveness; or anyone for that matter. Guess its never too late for a 70 yr old to start trying to buy his way out of hell.
Lifetime GOP voting Fox News watcher I spoke with yesterday told me I was crazy for thinking anyone had enough to even discuss impeaching Trump. I mentioned that he admitted to obstruction of justice in his Lester Holt interview and all they'd say is "Oh I don't watch Lester Holt so I don't care what he said to him." These people are getting worse.
It's not obstruction of justice if he doesn't admit it on fox news or alex Jones is an interesting legal argument.
Well, he's the president he should be the person that decides what actions are considered obstruction of justice.
When you collect all seven orbs the dragon, Shenlong, grants you one wish. Pretty standard stuff here.
I think his justification for his vote would be something along the lines of: The founding fathers did not intend to grant blacks the right to vote, I don't see any reason to go against what the founders intended.
Melania scours media to protect Trump As she travels with the president this week, the first lady will be in a position to exert greater influence over his chaotic operation. Spoiler By Tara Palmeri 05/20/2017 07:08 AM EDT First lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump talk to the press aboard Air Force One on February 10. | Getty Melania Trump’s spent her first few months as first lady in New York, only rarely appearing in Washington or speaking at events. Yet friends and aides say she’s keeping a close watch from her gilded apartment in Trump Tower on how her husband is portrayed in the press — and that she’s growing increasingly worried about the anonymous sniping from West Wing staff. Like President Donald Trump, these people said, Melania Trump is an avid consumer of cable news. She often tracks the news of the day and will alert her husband to stories she thinks make him look bad. She has raised concerns that some on his communications and press team aren’t doing enough to defend him, according to aides and sources close to the president. She’s been especially troubled by background quotes in which West Wing aides criticize the president, and she’s called the president to discuss it. Her quiet role as private watchdog is at odds with her public persona. Melania Trump has been seen as generally aloof and removed from her husband's political operation since he announced his campaign in 2015, but as his administration has been consumed by infighting and outside investigations, she's grown increasingly vocal about the perceived shortcomings of staff surrounding the president. “Melania loves the president unconditionally, definitely, she really cares about the president, she feels a kind of protection,” said her longtime friend and former modeling agent Paolo Zampolli, who introduced the couple in 1998. “The main concern to the president and the first lady is that these leaks are unacceptable.” Aides and friends of the president describe Melania Trump as one of several people he calls at night to hear how the dysfunction in his White House is playing out beyond the Beltway, including billionaire businessmen Carl Icahn, Rupert Murdoch and Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy. White House Trump told aides firing Flynn was a mistake By Josh Dawsey For the next week, she’ll travel with her husband, accompanying him on his first trip overseas, putting her in a position to exert even greater influence over his thinking day to day. “She’s very private and she’s very smart. Anyone who thinks she’s a mannequin doesn’t get it,” said longtime Trump associate Roger Stone. “She has excellent instincts into who is trying to exploit their influence with him.” In recent weeks, her concerns have centered on White House press secretary Sean Spicer, whose role as an on-camera briefer is expected to change after Trump returns from his overseas trip. “She was really concerned that Spicer was not doing a good job, that they were not proactive in defending the president,” said one outside adviser who speaks to the president regularly. ”The leaks bother her. She believes a lot of people are more interested in serving themselves than him.” Like Donald Trump, perception is key to Melania Trump. She visibly nudged the president to put his hand on his heart during the national anthem at the White House Easter Egg Roll in April. Behind the scenes, she personally reviewed small details at the event, including the Easter Bunny costumes worn by staff. One bunny was forced to shed the outfit attached to the costume after Melania Trump said she didn’t like it, one aide recalled. “Mrs. Trump is being diligent and thoughtful, with a focus on quality and tradition, when it comes to her important role of first lady — both behind the scenes and in public,” said Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump’s communications director. ”She is staying true to herself, and she believes the American people deserve nothing less.” On the campaign trail, Melania Trump made her preferences known and would tell aides when she thought stories or issues could be handled better. She weighed in on controversy when former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was accused of roughly handling a reporter. Former campaign aides say Trump took her opinion into account. “She would consult with us, she would send me things. She was concerned when there was this ridiculous reaction to some of Trump’s statements,” said former campaign adviser Sam Nunberg. ”[Trump] would say to us, ‘Melania said this; well, Melania told me that.’” Her decision to stay in New York, where 11-year-old Barron Trump is finishing the school year, has prompted widespread intrigue — but her allies are quick to point out that even Michelle Obama briefly considered delaying her move to Washington while their daughters finished school in Chicago after President Barack Obama was elected. Melania Trump is expected to move to Washington over the summer with Barron, who will enroll at St. Andrews’ Episcopal School in suburban Potomac, Maryland. She’ll travel with the president throughout his tour through Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy and Belgium, hosting events on her own during the first few stops and attending programs for spouses while he’s at the NATO and G-7 summits at the end of the trip. Ahead of the foreign trip, the first lady put out a statement: “This will not just be an opportunity to support my husband as he works on important matters of national security and foreign relations, it will also be my honor to visit and speak with women and children from different countries, with different perspectives.” Anita McBride, who served as chief of staff to Laura Bush and has been consulting for Melania Trump, pointed to her decision to visit hospitals and schools, following traditional advocacy for first ladies. ”She wants to be taken seriously, and I think she wants to study this role,” said McBride. “It’s an enormous privilege to her as a new American citizen.”