This must be the most epic gaslighting attempt in American history

[EarlG]

When conservative commentator and host Rush Limbaugh opened his radio show Monday, indictments had just been made public in Washington D.C. against President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Manfort and one of his top lieutenants had been taken into custody on charges of money laundering and tax evasion. Special counsel Robert Mueller had also secured a guilty plea from former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who admitted to lying to the FBI about contacts with Russia.

But Limbaugh, one of the most influential voices on the right, worked quickly to reframe the day's developments. "None of this is real," he insisted. When a listener suggested Mueller had "gone rogue" and might be trying to topple Trump, Limbaugh amplified the fear. "This is the coup. If Hillary had been elected, none of this would be happening, other than they still put Trump in jail as a message to the outsider, don't dare try this."

(snip)

Much of Monday's conservative coverage asserted that Clinton is actually the one who colluded with Russia when she was secretary of state. Fox News star Sean Hannity told his audience that people investigating Trump are all complicit in an Obama administration decision in 2010 that allowed a Russian company to gain a financial interest in part of America's uranium reserves.

(snip)

Fact-checkers with the Washington Post and other outlets have looked at these narratives involving Clinton and found they don't check out. Nor do these claims have anything to do with Monday's indictments or the question of whether Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

http://www.npr.org/2017/10/31/561070095/none-of-this-is-real-conservative-media-reacts-to-mueller-indictments

[malaise]

1. Their lies and misinformation have to stop

K & R

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. Rush is right.

If Hillary had been elected, no one would be calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump.

[Iggo]

13. Yep, none of this would be happening.

Destruction of the ACA.
Obliteration of US standing among nations.
Brinksmanship with North Korea.
Nazis killing people in the streets.

There's gotta be more, but that's the short list.

Yep, none of that would be happening if Clinton had been elected.

[gopiscrap]

23. disrespect to military service widows

of whom their spouses were killed in action

[maddiemom]

33. Thank you, Electoral College....

for doing exactly the job for which you are alleged to exist! Namely for preventing just such a scenario by overriding the popular vote, which can't be trusted if the voters don't live in the less populated states.

[Generic Brad]

53. It's more like Electoral Community College

[lastlib]

57. Electoral Trump University.

Total fraud.

[Midnight Writer]

65. Same with Congress. Democrats got most votes, but less seats in both House and Senate.

[zentrum]

50. Neil Gorsuch nt

[TNNurse]

71. Is Limbaugh getting dumber and more paranoid?

Which I was not sure possible. Yes, none of this investigation would be happening, we would just be grateful that Trump was not elected.

[Demsrule86]

26. He would already be indicted because of his illegal activities during the campaign.

[Madam45for2923]

3. Yeah sure & Russia was trying to elect her!

sarcasm

[bdamomma]

9. we all know here on DU

Putin hated Hillary, she stood up to him.

[Rhiannon12866]

67. +1000!

[MagickMuffin]

4. In ALL Fairness and Balance

Fox News has always been gaslighting their audience. It's what they do.

After all Fair and Balanced was their calling card

[EarlG]

17. Perhaps the most frightening thing to them in this whole affair so far

is that Manafort, Gates, and Papadopoulos are being held to account FOR LYING to federal investigators.

Heaven forbid that the American people start getting the message that telling deliberate, blatant lies is a bad thing that people shouldn't do.

[RussBLib]

18. but FOX's lying is so deeply entrenched

it's going to take years to de-louse everyone

[Moostache]

24. It will just be the 21st century de-nazification program.

The people who are currently being lied to daily from sunrise to sunset do not realize that they have been brain washed and used...some of them may have a stinging little voice in the back of their head saying "this feels off", but by and large they remain convinced that the world is out to get them, that Hillary Clinton is a Bond villain and Trump is somehow awesome.

That's gonna be one helluva hang over when the full realization of the truth hits them, and for the GOP, when that day arrives (and it WILL), that's gonna be a helluva reckoning as well.

[SergeStorms]

62. Unfortunately....

the GOP will never allow the truth to hit them. That would spell the end of the Republican party (something that would make Bannon very happy). I believe the Republican party is toast after this anyway, and the vast majority of independents and some Republicans are not going to allow Steve Bannon to take our country so far to the right.

Hopefully we'll have a Democratic majority in this country for at least the next two decades IF we can keep from getting too cocky, too pushy, and always do right by the American people.

[unitedwethrive]

5. The ease with which they lie reveals just how long theyve been doing it.

It takes anyone a while to become comfortable with any new endeavor. The repubs realized long ago that a party working for the benefit of rich, white men had to do lots of lying to get enough votes to win anything. Deceit is now woven into the fabric of the repub party. (As long as they insist on truncating the name of our party, we should do the same to them.)

[Hortensis]

31. The ease with which some voters internalize the lies

has become an enormous threat to our republic.

The hugely powerful forces behind all this are counting on mindless partisan loyalty by Republican voters to bring them through not just massive corruption, but treasonous, seditious activities. It's not just Russia. What did Pence know when he was persuaded (by the Kochs almost certainly) to give up his governorship, and his career, for a joke of a VP slot on a ticket "doomed to fail"? What did those who offered know? And I don't mean Trump.

Will they win or will a small but critical percentage of their voters finally be repelled enough to break away?

Politico: Murdoch-owned outlets bash Mueller, seemingly in unison
After resisting opportunities to take Trump's line on Russia, the Wall Street Journal editorial page goes all in.

Democrats, Russians and the FBI
Did the bureau use disinformation to trigger its Trump probe?
By The Editorial Board
Oct. 25, 2017 6:49 p.m. ET
It turns out that Russia has sown distrust in the U.S. political system—aided and abetted by the Democratic Party, and perhaps the FBI. This is an about-face from the dominant media narrative of the last year, and it requires a full investigation.

The Washington Post revealed Tuesday that the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee jointly paid for that infamous “dossier” full of Russian disinformation against Donald Trump. They filtered the payments through a U.S. law firm...

Begging Your Pardon, Mr. President: How Trump can shut down the special counsel probe and leave the Russia investigations to Congress. -- WSJ Op Ed

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[58Sunliner]

6. Every time DT opens his mouth he gaslights people. It's what sociopaths do.

Is Rush a sociopath or does he just play one? At some point it doesn't matter, because he owns it.

[Hortensis]

36. This isn't Trump. Don't imagine all this started with his election.

If you could snap your fingers and make him poof-disappear, what's happening would still be here.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

52. Yep. They started the media push when Reagan killed the Fairness Act

The rich white corporate knew media propaganda and owning a christian sect were critical for their mass brainwashing project.

[Hortensis]

69. Yes. When we allowed an ultrawealthy class to develop,

we put our republic in grave danger. We should not expect archconservatives who can purchase senators with their chump change to lack arrogance and greed. Or contempt for our wishes and wellbeing. As an expert who's watching this happen in nations around the planet says, corruption is not a sign of disorder but rather of a reordering to serve certain groups.

We have to stop it, and we can. There are over 330 million of us, and 200 million of us have the vote. If they don't keep us divided and turned on each other, they don't stand a snowflake's chance in hell.

[Saviolo]

7. It's the strategy

They're trying to pollute the national dialogue so deeply that it's impossible to see. Murky, toxic, dangerous, and (at this point) almost entirely irreversible. By legitimizing "news" sources like InfoWars and Breitbart, the Trump administration has normalized fringe conspiracy theories, the triumph of "feelings" over "facts," and in a broader sense has enabled white supremacists, white nationalists, and nazis and allowed them to position themselves as valid political ideologies instead of hurtful, hateful, dangerous, and destructive ideologies of death.

It will take years or even decades to come back from the damage that this administration has caused to the national psyche.

[trotsky]

11. "Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible"

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006

What happened in Russia, and what they're trying to do here.

[Cosmocat]

42. Fine point

they are not "trying."

They have done it.

Their 1/3 of the country is completely, 100% removed from facts, reality and common sense.
The "middle" 1/3 has PTSD, and has been incapacitated by the "they are both the same" fog.
Our 1/3 is ripping our hair out cause 1/3 of the country are walking dead zombies and another 1/3 have had their brains turned to mush.

[Mosby]

45. +1

[Initech]

8. The fear and paranoia is strong with conservatives.

[Moostache]

32. That's WHY they are what they are and think what they do....

The mind of a conservative reacts differently to information and desires someone to TELL them what to think and how to respond...

[ananda]

10. ROFL -- If Hillary had been elected, none of this would be happening!

[Iggo]

14. No shit.

[lagomorph777]

12. They are starting to sound pretty frightened.

I wonder how much dirt Mueller has on RW media personalities. I'll bet there lots of Roubles in their offshore bank accounts.

[mopinko]

15. hey rush, what ever happened to those drug indictments?

would love to have the feds comb through your finances.

[Soxfan58]

16. Signs of panic?

[NRaleighLiberal]

19. Yup. And this is what is taking a huge - and daily - toll on all of us here, all of us who watch

this unfold and just can't believe it is happening. It is turning all of our worlds completely upside down.

[Nitram]

20. Actually it is the clumsiest, most inept attempt at gaslighting the world has ever witnessed.

Just keep repeating the same lies like a broken record, broken record, broken record, broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record,broken record, broken record, broken record...

[herding cats]

21. Where would they be if they had to deal in facts and reality?

Lies and bogus conspiracies have been the bread and butter of these RW media outlets for decades now. Granted they've become more over the top in the past decade, but it's still the foundation on which these entities were built. Without their lies they have nothing. Without their fake conspiracies they have no hook to catch their audience with.

Their ultimate fear is that enough people figure out they were lied to and played by these buffoons and stop listening.

[spanone]

22. 'If Hillary had been elected, none of this would be happening'...no shit, Lu$h

[KG]

25. wow. is npr finally getting a clue?

[Hekate]

27. This is a very dangerous moment in US history.

TY for the article

[chelsea0011]

28. "a coup"...RMAO

Hillary appointed Mueller don't you know.

[underpants]

29. I caught this on Rush's show yesterday

The only thing there is is the Trump dossier, and that’s fake and made up. I don’t care what you hear, none of it’s been corroborated. A lot of it has been officially blown to smithereens as not credible, and not just the golden showers aspect of it. So to the extent that that dossier has been used to form an official investigation, if that dossier is ever the reason for any indictments, then I can see — well, I don’t know. Depends on the judge. Depends on the court.
Everything’s been so corrupted because it’s been so politicized. I’ll just tell you this. In a just world — and I’m not trying to make a pun here. In a world where the justice system reigns supreme, any indictment resulting from whatever’s in the Trump dossier would have to be thrown out. It’s not real. It’s a political document. It was bought and paid for by a political campaign to do damage against the political presidential opponent! It’s not an intelligence document. It’s bought and paid for. So anything in it that leads to an indictment, to me, would be extremely risky.
So, I will have to defer to actual legal experts on that last claim, but it just seems common sense to me that if indictments occur because of things that are not true in that dossier are used as evidence, then what good is it? It’s gotta be thrown out. So here’s the next question I got. “Rush, I’m thinking that there’s a possibility that Manafort is not actually aiming at Trump here.” Meaning with the indictment of Manafort. That Mueller is not actually aiming at Trump but may in fact be trying to get Podesta. What Mueller and his investigators are looking into is Russian influence in general, not from the Trump campaign, but from Manafort for years before and the Podesta — Now, Manafort’s political entanglements involve him with the government of Ukraine, which is not Russia! And the things that Manafort’s firm, things they were engaged in, the Podesta firm was engaged in very similar behavior.

[Mr. Ected]

30. When half your nation believes disinformation and disbelieves authority (unless it favors them)

The Republic is in deep deep shit.

[TNLib]

34. Their lies are getting so ridiculous

Pretty soon their viewers and listeners are going to be primarily Seniors that are cognitively impaired and the mentally ill suffering from delusions.

[BSdetect]

37. They are shameless con artists and liars.

[uponit7771]

38. I understand more why civil war started & how a bunch of poor people fought for rich peoples stuff

[pbmus]

59. But it was because we couldnt compromise..

Last edited Wed Nov 1, 2017, 10:21 PM - Edit history (1)

What exactly was it we couldn’t compromise, WHAT, the slavery of people , the rape,murder,pillage of generations....Hell No, and Thank God We Did Not Compromise....

[uponit7771]

73. +1 ... Kelly is another "own reality" type person, just makes shit up in his head

[Hassin Bin Sober]

60. I keep thinking of a quote I read about pre war Nazi Germany.

The propaganda was so effective that reasonable people were thought of as the crazy ones.

[uponit7771]

72. +1

[TeamPooka]

39. Applied Orwell 101

[geardaddy]

40. He's the new Goebbels

[Still In Wisconsin]

41. It's fucking Right -Wing America's Pravda.

There are two versions of every story: their official "true" version, and the evil left's version.

[Chipper Chat]

44. Kelley - Ann told us:

"Theses are alternative facts"

[-Steph-]

43. Just today, a Trump voter that I know could barely contain his excitement. Apparently he's been led

to believe, by right-wing media, that Hillary is getting ready to go to prison, and he couldn't be happier about it. You'd think this man just won the lottery with the amount of excitement just beaming through him. He was like a kid on Christmas morning. That's how misinformed right-wing media has conservative voters.

[rurallib]

49. I just got to

welcome to DU

[Beartracks]

46. And where's it written that paid-for info is false by definition?

It takes time and resources, even for intelligence agencies, to pull this stuff together. Dossiers don't grow on trees. So even if one claims that Hillary's campaign "paid for" the dossier, the point is that if they wanted to amass fiction and fantasy they would have retained J.K. Rowling, not MI6.

============

[Proud Liberal Dem]

75. Also, where is it written

that oppo research is somehow now a scandal? What's even more mystifying is that the Steele Dossier was never AFAIK used by the Clinton campaign in the GE.

[Beartracks]

78. Well... well... because Hillary!!!!111!

That's all it takes for Republicans to get in a tizzy and throw logic and facts out the window.

Rightwingers can simply attach Hillary's name to something unrelated to her, and ... BAM! Rush and Hannity and Trump will run with it far and wide.

===================

[Oneironaut]

47. Not only that, but Manafort is actually working for the DNC!

Everything Manafort did was BEFORE the election, and it was actually for Hillary’s Campaign!

Yup - I listen to talk radio. You would need the Tsar Bomba to blast away the epic pile of horseshit spewed by Fox News radio and Limbaugh on a daily basis.

[PatrickforO]

48. Two words:

[whathehell]

51. +10000. n/t

[colsohlibgal]

54. Fox And Their Like Are Shameless Propoganda Shills

Again, functioning not unlike how Goebbels did for Hitler. Anyone buying any of their act has taken leave of their brain.

[Ukapau]

55. This is what Republicans do -- day in, day out. Although I sure blame the people who

set this system up, who continue to perpetuate it -- in short, the richest of the rich who do not have a conscience. And their sycophantic bookkeepers.

[Ukapau]

56. This is what Republicans do -- day in, day out. Although I sure blame the people who

agree with them, and also who enable them.

As Thom Hartmann says, "Take names and kick butt!"

[L. Coyote]

58. This is the best they can come up with!

Sad.

?1509394216


Before and after Russia probe indictments, Fox News worked feverishly to discredit the investigation
By Hunter -- dKos -- Oct 31, 2017

Just before it was publicly disclosed that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had filed indictments against as-of-yet-unnamed Trump-tied figures, Fox News went on an absolute tear against Mueller—with talking heads like Sean Hannity demanding the special counsel resign. They also engaged in one of the most transparent attempts at partisan propaganda-peddling the network had ever undertaken, suddenly puffing up a conspiracy theory linking Hillary Clinton to uranium mining that had never before taken root among conservatives because it had always been a wee bit too stupid-sounding even for the Sean Hannity crowd.

A week later, that push appears to be clear evidence that Fox had information that indictments were forthcoming—and was seeking to undermine their impact. This would be unthinkable for a "news" operation, but as a network devoted to propagandizing the news in service to a narrow subset of the Republican agenda, it was unsurprising.

Vox took it upon themselves to analyze how the Fox network covered the Mueller investigation, the guilty plea of Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos, and the indictment of campaign head Paul Manafort. The Fox efforts to propagandize the news were robust, consisting both of substantive omissions. ..

[UCmeNdc]

61. Propaganda

It is a powerful tool to control people.

[Sunlei]

63. It is Epic. I bet old Rush is back on the drug addiction.

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

64. I think if you take his opening line-

Last edited Wed Nov 1, 2017, 02:40 AM - Edit history (1)

Non Of This Is Real-, Fact is Limbaugh,s so called conservative commentary falls under the classification (entertainment} So none of this is real having been said is the truth in what he was about to say . That is why so many jock's are practically mesmerized at the money the guy makes for the shit he spills out and how long it has lasted.

Limbaugh did confess to his shit being entertainment pure and simple ,but you know ,the truth was just too much to bare for his cult fallowing. Now they are emboldened trumpizoids ! But, the fact remains,none of it is real. But they will keep sending in those $5.00 donations to what Trump claims is 2020 reelection, which is actually the monies Trump wants to pay legal fees.And those fees are about as real as real can get !

[malaise]

68. Great post

RW media is the equivalent to the Sunday preachers - they are all snake oil salesmen and women

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

74. If Wolf Man Jack were still around

He would howl out the unvarnished truth about the evils of snake oil salesman and those that become devout believers !

[malaise]

77. We need more folks like him

There are way too many snake oil salesmen and women

[onetexan]

70. Limbaugh's radio show is no entertainment, rather it should be labelled

an organized effort to incite chaos and racial violence, and he labelled a domestic terrorist.

[vi5]

76. But the thing is....IT WORKS....and they know it works.....

...they know that all they need to do is muddy the waters.

Look at what they did with "fake news". We were all talking about it and furrowing our brows over how serious the false news reports and refutable facts were harming the country. Then....boom! They turn it around immediately and all their followers now use it as a rallying cry.

They literally live in an alternate reality and there's nothing that ever requires them to leave that bubble.