They had to (try to) discredit Rachael Maddow any way they could..

[Peacetrain]

She has been on the Trump campaigns backs.. literally beating the Russian connections out of them.. she has been amazing.. and her poll numbers reflected it..

She really had no choice but to show the 2 tax pages she had.. since they brought it to her.. she does not get to pick and choose.. this was news.. well placed, and I am sure she knew it too.. so she gave as good a preamble as she could.. because she knew she was being set up.. she is that good..

This will backfire on the trump people in the long run..but they have this philosophy that given a week.. everybody will forget about it.. and throw enough dirt, and muddy the water enough.. it will stop their supporters from listening to her.

I have her back..

EDIT TO ADD! (try to) to title.. because they can't

[old guy]

1. Me too.

[NYETNYET]

5. RIGHT BESIDE YOU...

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. Pretty weak sauce, if you ask me.

They "discredit" her by giving her a 2 page excerpt of an 11 year old tax return that answers none of the questions plaguing the Madman's secrecy surrounding his tax returns, other than the fact that apparently he paid some taxes 11 years ago for income on God knows what?

[Peacetrain]

3. That is about as good as they could do is my guess.. they are grasping at straws..

The Russian house of cards is about to fall..

[Cha]

48. They think they're so clever..

"..the idiots will buy it "

[Hekate]

4. Rachel is carrying our First Amendment solutions to the battle. I have her back because she has ours

[Peacetrain]

7. She is fighting the good fight!

The connections she has been making are hair raising..

[PJMcK]

25. I love your expression

"First Amendment solutions."

Perfect. Let's use that as a meme for other Amendments.

For example, Marriage Equality: Fourteenth Amendment solutions.

Any other ideas?

[Hekate]

29. Apply liberally. I did a little OP today in re the dumbass who suggested "2nd Amendment solutions"

....against Obama. When Rachel shot back (so to speak) last night that she did nothing illegal because she has the right to report under the 1st Amendment, and moreover she's not a fake reporter ("See? Pinch me&quot -- that's when I thought of it. Bless that woman. I forgive her all her quirks, every time, because she is so smart and dogged.

[gibraltar72]

6. In Rachel

I trust.

[malaise]

8. Hope it backfires on some folks

here as well

[Peacetrain]

9. Me too...

[Hekate]

16. It will. Then they'll find another Democratic hero to tear down on some pretext.

Cheers, malaise.

[malaise]

22. LOL - hi there

Rachel's program has never been my problem - promoting that Fox hack now - that was another matter

[Earth Bound Misfit]

45. me three

[lame54]

10. so that's the rule?...

they have to present any crap that is handed to them?

They can't hold and build on it to present a big picture story?

she didn't have to show it and she certainly didn't have to hype it

[Peacetrain]

12. I watched that last night.. and it did not take me 10 seconds to see through it

And I think she did an admirable job getting people tuned in and setting it up.. so that they will demand the rest.. she is good..

[lame54]

15. that's great but...

you didn't address my question

[Peacetrain]

19. You have a question?

[lame54]

21. the 3 ?'s should have tipped you off

[Hekate]

20. Your question didn't address the issue of setting up all the pieces, connecting the dots, ...

...educating whoever is listening and encouraging them to get the earwax out of theirs ears, and in general doing all the other hard work involved in exercising her First Amendment rights so we can exercise ours in an informed manner.

But whatever.

[lame54]

26. the whatever is...

that she HAD to present them

is that true?

not whether is was a smart thing to do but did she HAVE to as the OP suggests

[bettyellen]

30. Someone was going to present them- I'm glad she framed the issue of his income and debt as urgently

Important to the welfare of our nation.

[George II]

37. Maybe because she took 20 minutes to present it?

[oldtime dfl_er]

32. Of course she did

She had a journalistic responsibility to present them. (Can you imagine if she had chosen NOT to show them???) She did a great job at it.

Yes, it's likely Trump's idiot team leaked this return, and thought they were being so clever in doing so. But a lot was revealed:

1. It's now an UNDENIABLE fact that a GREAT MANY AMERICANS are VERY interested in seeing Don the Con's taxes. Both Rachel's site and David Cay Johnson's site crashed from interest.

2. There were things in these two pages that brought up a LOT more questions which will now be pursued.

3. Rachel herself said she did not believe this would be the last returns we would see leaked, and Rachel rarely speaks casually about things like that.

4. Even though this was likely just an attempt at distraction, there are enough of us RESISTERS that we can keep an eye on the Con's finances AT THE SAME TIME as we keep an eye on all the other dirty dealings going on right now, including the health care crap.

[lame54]

40. I'm imagining...

got nuthin'

you don't have to present every piece of the puzzle as they come in

sometimes it helps to start putting the puzzle together before presenting it

this is not of critique of her presentation

i just don't think they are compelled to immediately regurgitate every piece of info somebody sends them

Isn't that what happened to Rather?

[LanternWaste]

11. She's not discredited. Lazy minds are easily mislead

She's not discredited.

Lazy minds are easily mislead into believing a commercial on a commercial station for a commercial show is An Absolute Truth, to be interpreted only as they see fit, and discounting what ratings-driven news television has been doing since 1958.

When they finally realize that Nine Out of Ten Doctors does not mean 90% of doctors, I fear their undisciplined little minds will fall into an abyss.

[Peacetrain]

14. Ah yep...

She is good at what she does.. she is a new commentator.. and this has been in the news .. the demand for the Trump tax returns.. so she set THEM up in the end..

[PJMcK]

28. Off topic question

I remember the old Trident chewing gum commercial where the ad stated that 4 out of 5 dentists recommended Trident to their patients who chewed gum. I've highlighted the misleading part of the statement. In other words, the sample excludes all the patients who don't chew gum. Accordingly, the real statistic isn't indicated in the hyped statement.

However, I'm don't understand your comment, "...that Nine Out of Ten Doctors does not mean 90% of doctors."

Please explain and thank you.

[unblock]

13. i'm squarely in the "nothingburger" camp, but on the other hand, this doesn't discredit her at all.

she got some tax info on donnie, she reported it.

did she promote and tease a bit? yeah, ok, so what? the whole media does that. big deal.

did she get anything wrong? apparently not, donnie appears to have confirmed the release is authentic.


it's vaguely possible that these were illegally obtained, but donnie's not in a position to complain, given that he merrily used contraband he and everyone else knew was illegally obtained, and even publically called for more espionage to give him more contraband.

[Peacetrain]

17. Thre is no doubt in my mind his campaign sent it out..

But this might give their most adamant supporters that chance to try and denounce anything Rachel reports from here on out.. but they have committed themselves to Moscow already.. I knew by the end of the program that this was muddy water tactic on the rights part.. And I thought they did a pretty darned good job of saying yeah.. 2 pages showed up.. but this is what is missing..

[Dem2]

18. Pffft

The only problem I see are DUers - no place else it as bad as here.

[Peacetrain]

23. ROFL...

Some do have a tendency to bring out the salt and pepper and eat our own..

[Dem2]

33. Chomp!

It's kind of funny.

I'm glad people are enthusiastic and have their heart in it, however, but we have few dedicated and talented people on our side who are as good as Rachel. Let's just call a slightly over hyped story what it is and move on. Besides, the post today listing the benefits of such a strategy made some good points.

[nevergiveup]

24. This is the best response I have seen

to this debate regarding Maddow. If anyone is to bring down this monster it will likely be Rachael. She is brilliant and she is fearless, persistent and as determined as hell. We throw her under the bus at our own peril.

[Peacetrain]

27. At our own peril..

Yep she is out bringing all this in on the Russians.. not backing down...

[LenaBaby61]

31. They had to discredit Rachael Maddow any way they could.

OP, the ONLY thing I thought Rachel did wrong with the story was to over-sell it. She should have tweeted "I've come across 2 pages from DJT's 2005 Taxes. I have the pages on my blog. I'll also have David Cay Johnson on as my guest tonight for the show." Something like that.

NOTHING wrong with what she did in the least in bringing out the information someone gave her about that racist, lying, pig's taxes.

[Peacetrain]

34. I agree.. my title was missing a couple of words

I had it in my head, but did not write it down.but I added them..

[TomCADem]

35. It Is Like The Preemptive Attacks on the CBO...

...we still have folks trolling and attacking progressive figures while giving Trump and his Republican/Russian enablers a free pass.

[OnDoutside]

36. Wasn't it David Cay Johnston who GAVE the story to Rachel, not the leaker? Surely Johnston could

have given the story to CNN or elsewhere ?

[Cosmocat]

39. Ah, only took 20+ replies

Today has been Republican like hyperbolic reactive defense mode.

I like RM a lot, and I do agree once Johnson came to her she had to do her show on it.

But, she got caught up in the moment, and made into more than it was, a bit, and didn't tamp it down enough relative to 45 putting it out to deflect attention.

[OnDoutside]

43. A matter of opinion, I thought she handled it quite well while putting it out that this could well

have been leaked by Trump. I know that a lot of By-lines and Headlines are created by Sub editors, maybe something similar here.

[Wounded Bear]

38. I thought she did very well...

because in the end, it wasn't about the tax returns per se. Yeah, it was a little overhyped, but during that hour with her guests she also showcased and referred to many of the other things she has been reporting on for several weeks, and quite effectively.

I'm not sure we have another journalist right now who is as good as Rachel at pulling threads of a story together into a narrative.

One of the big things they did last night was to tie the Russian connection to Trump's taxes and financials. Always follow the money.

Trump's supporters are hopeless, but the many millions of people out there that are not die-hard Trumplodytes got a pretty good synopsis of Trump's problems from Rachel last night. The more people who see that episode, the better.

[ymetca]

41. If the two pages of tax returns in question did "leak" from Trump

that seems to indicate she is no longer being ignored. They are worried about her reporting.

He also just raised her profile that much, higher. Bad move.

Almost overlooked in her reporting was that Mercer's yacht was docked so nearby Rybolovlev's. What a coincidence, eh?

Face-to-face communications are all they have left, as they must assume all other forms are being monitored. So physical proximity of all the players looms more and more important.

[NastyRiffraff]

42. I actually like her long lead-ups

Usually I learn something; sometimes quite a lot. Rachel is brilliant at methodically connecting the dots. Sometimes you wonder where she's going, but there's that "aha!" moment towards the end of the segment.

Was this hyped? Yep, because getting ANY of Dishonest Dump's taxes is news. Was it over-hyped? Probably, but that's television news today. Not unique to Rachel's show and certainly not uncommon.

[mikeysnot]

44. spread it far and wide...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028796916

[moondust]

46. Not sure it was meant for Rachel.

Last edited Wed Mar 15, 2017, 09:04 PM - Edit history (1)

One possible scenario is that the WH truly believed it would be illegal for a "journalist" to publicize the return. Trump has told Tucker Carlson and maybe others that it's illegal. The WH may have figured that whomever they sent the return to would be unable to resist making a big deal out of it and soon it would be all over TV. In their minds that would place whomever they sent it to in legal trouble, maybe even end their career. Trump also loves to sue people.

They sent it to David Cay Johnston. Why would they want to ruin him? Because he has credibility. He's written a book about Trump, knows tax stuff, and goes on "fake news" quite a bit with a fairly low opinion of Trump. He may have been the real target. They may not have known which TV show he would take it to but were probably glad it was Rachel because she has been so unrelenting in her coverage of Trump's scandals and bullshit.

Potentially knocking out David Cay Johnston and Rachel Maddow with one blow? Tremendous!!!! Bigly!!!!

[Skittles]

47. I don't understand how TWELVE YEAR OLD TAX RETURNS mean ANYTHING

[progressoid]

49. Sure, she had to show it. But there wasn't really anything in it that we didn't already know.

And the melodrama and hype wasn't necessary.