It is exhausting how much of this is wrong or confused. And in particular, how much that is wrong or confused has been repeatedly corrected already. Is it even worth pointing out again when the same stuff gets recycled a month later anyway?
Maybe I’m looking back through rose tinted glasses, but I feel like it used to be a little better. When a talking point had been conclusively refuted (like, e.g., the “circular sourcing” business) reputable commenters would—perhaps grudgingly, and usually quietly—drop it.
I don’t even think it’s outright dishonesty, exactly: I doubt Hanson KNOWS any of the claims he’s making are false. He probably just hasn’t looked too closely at what experts had to say about any of it.
One thing I probably haven’t said before because I’d have thought it went without saying: Charging perjury isn’t some kind of consolation prize investigators engage in because they can’t find any “real” crimes...
It’s something you do because it’s extremely hard to conduct an investigation when subjects believe they can lie without consequence.
One other very general thing is that I see a lot of critiques that conflate the Special Counsel’s Office with things everyone under but the SCO the sun is saying. Which I suppose they can get away with when the SCO says so little.
As in: “Mueller” has been justifying his investigation by the quantity rather than quality of indictments. But… he hasn’t been justifying anything. Other people have used that as an indicator of progress.
