Washington

Americans are not happy with their news media, as almost six in 10 say it makes them angry and dissatisfied in a new poll. It may also be the trending topic from the appearance by ex-FBI director James Comey in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

A new Quinnipiac survey asked Americans:

“I am going to mention four phrases and ask you which one best describes how you feel about the job the news media has been doing covering American politics. Do you feel enthusiastic, satisfied but not enthusiastic, dissatisfied but not angry, or angry?”

Enthusiastic: 10 percent

Satisfied: 30 percent

Dissatisfied: 33 percent

Angry: 26 percent

Quinnipiac also revealed that a majority of those polled believe that Trump has changed attitudes about the media for the worse:

“Do you believe that President Trump has changed American attitudes towards the news media for the better, for the worse, or hasn’t President Trump had an impact on American attitudes towards the news media?”

For the better: 22 percent

For the worse: 52 percent

Not helping the mainstream media on Thursday, were several devastating revelations from fired FBI Director James Comey’s testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The “Russian meddling” nonsense for which there exists no evidence, fell apart when Comey said he never felt that Trump tried to impede the FBI’s investigation into Russia, but instead encouraged it, killing the mainstream media narrative.

Comey also debunked a New York Times article as fake news, claiming that the Trump campaign had “repeated contacts with Russian intelligence”. In their fake news report, the Times claimed that the “campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials”.

Republican senator James Risch from Idaho, asked Comey if the article was false, and Comey clearly answered: “In the main – it was not true.”

Comey also indirectly shredded a NYT article claiming Trump asked him to shut down the investigation into general Michael Flynn, admitting that he was never directly told to stop the probe.

Trump had once asked FBI Director James Comey to find leakers in the administration, but Comey admitted that he himself was a leaker, after he had asked Columbia law professor Daniel Richman to leak memos to the media to create trouble for Trump.

Comey said that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch ordered him to downplay the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails by not calling it an “investigation” but a “matter”.

President Trump on Friday morning to slammed James Comey as a “liar” and a “leaker” on Twitter, calling his hearing “total and complete vindication” from the Senate Intel Committee.

On Thursday Americans sat glued to their TV screens, watching Comey’s first public comments since the president fired him early last month.

Comey hangs around with a sordid bunch of people, a source in Washington told FWM. The Columbia lawyer Daniel Richman, to whom Comey gave the info to leak to the press lives in Brooklyn Heights, New York, in the same building as Lena Dunham, a close friend of Richman.

Clinton surrogate Dunham told an audience while being filmed by ABC News last year: “White patriarchy is like a beast in a movie that’s been stabbed and is just dying so slow and screaming as it goes down, and I just am afraid of what that’s going to look like.”

Cyberattacks from the United States meanwhile, happen almost daily Kremlin press-secretary Dmitry Peskov said. “Hacking attacks, which are carried out from the US territory, are recorded daily, including attacks targeting the website of the Russian President,” Peskov told journalists on Thursday, adding that similar attacks “come from the territories of many countries around the world”.

“I don’t want to make the public laugh by claiming that official Washington is behind it. A mere fact that a hacking attack is carried out from the territory of some state is in no way a proof that official authorities are involved,” the Kremlin spokesman pointed out.

There were some funny moments during the hearing with senator John McCain confusing Comey, himself and viewers watching at home. At one point, McCain even referred to Comey as “President Comey”. McCain then blamed baseball for his confusion.

Twitter went wild, with some speculating about the 80-year-old’s mental health. “That was amazing for so many reasons, but the surprise ending is that John McCain was revealed to be… not quite… all there,” tweeted author Maureen Johnson.