a quick poll about Russia and Donald Trump

This:

I reckon some fairly smart people are in such a furious hurry to sink the knives in, on the basis of a noted legal cover-up artist's selective hyper-partisan spin on Mueller's report, because they're guessing correctly that what's actually in it isn't great for their reputation. https://t.co/DkH9i7SiZc

— Will Wilkinson 🌐 (@willwilkinson) March 26, 2019

Whaddaya think they got on Greenwald?

he goes on Fox

he has dog

in re. taibbi's WMD analogy, this actually seems more apposite (might need full thread for context):

The media's atrocious gullibility, which is letting this happen without serious resistance, is even more scandalous than the credulity that herded public opinion behind the invasion of Iraq. Because we already *know* this administration does nothing but lie.

— Will Wilkinson 🌐 (@willwilkinson) March 25, 2019

This Trump campaign memo seeking to de-platform Democrats constitutionally duty-bound to check executive abuses of power, on the basis of claims consistent with Barr's gloss on Mueller's report, gives away the aim of the game: no rule of law, no oversight. https://t.co/jKtPg1isB9

— Will Wilkinson 🌐 (@willwilkinson) March 25, 2019

Trump's hand-picked AG (confirmed by a lapdog Senate, with a record of shielding presidents from scandal) telling us what the report says & sitting on it doesn't settle anything. But spinning it like it does to prevent congressional oversight tell us a lot. This is far from over.

— Will Wilkinson 🌐 (@willwilkinson) March 25, 2019

weird to see "leftsist" buying barr's lines

*leftists

b/c Trump has successfully painted the media as "liberal" and they've all said he's exonerated so

where've y'all been on this and the politics thread in the last two days as certain posters rent their garments?

one one hand Barr is a Trump goon, but on the other he's been friends with Mueller for decades. I'm not really expecting a ton of discrepancies btwn the summary and the report

I mean the answer might be 4 but I wanna see if they both used the same equation to get to it

WMD analogy is so dumb. If Trump had been impeached and executed, along with most of his supporters, and THEN Mueller told us there was no collusion--maybe you'd have a case. Or if WMD had been an idea that was looked into by experts, who came back and said there's no evidence, which led to the invasion of Iraq being called off. Fuck political analogies IMO.

if anything it's like Benghazi, minus the part where the person actually had to testify

whether he "colluded" and whether that is a crime or an impeachable offense is a bit of a misdirection at this point. he clearly has SOMETHING going on with Russia, given the blatant lying about his dealings with/in Russia and his fawning over and deference to Putin.

My sources say the death penalty, for espionage, being considered for @StevenKBannon. I am pro-life and take no pleasure in reporting this.

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) July 19, 2017

I'm still shocked that they went through with that, RIP Steve.

Mensch is straight up being incepted at this point

Why do we care about her?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/opinion/what-to-ask-about-russian-hacking.html

she's a resistance liberal thought leader

(despite being a conservative)

Yam is also fawning over Kim, which could be a bigger problem

he likes authoritarians, but he didnt let that keep him from tearing up the nuke agreement with Russia

Uh, Morbz, you are perhaps unaware that Russia has been trying to trash the INF treaty for decades and that our unilateral withdrawal was a huge gift?

where've y'all been on this and the politics thread in the last two days as certain posters rent their garments?

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, March 26, 2019 3:33 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they've... been on this thread and the politics thread

Why do we care about her?

idk, why do we care about "leftsist"

(because he's the voice of his generation that's why)

i have read thst news, yes

do you really think *he* thinks it's a gift?

xxp

who?

wasn’t your point that much as he likes dictators (agreed), in this case he did something against a dictator’s interest (which is wrong)?

Mensch is fascinating because it's impossible to tell if she knows that she's making things up or if she believes it all.

I forgot about LM

i guess it depends how you look at Putin's interests vs Russia's xxp

whether he "colluded" and whether that is a crime or an impeachable offense is a bit of a misdirection at this point. he clearly has SOMETHING going on with Russia, given the blatant lying about his dealings with/in Russia and his fawning over and deference to Putin.

agreed - I always thought it was doubtful they'd find a smoking gun on par with Junior's emails, mainly because the Russians would know not to proposition the big man himself. quite frankly I don't really care, we 'interfere' in foreign elections all the time, and I'm past the point where I need to believe "he must've cheated!!" as an explanation as to why he beat Hillary Clinton. there's still something going on...maybe there's no piss tape but there are Russian businessmen who absolutely know his financial situation better than we do, and I think it's pretty close to a certainty that the Trump Org is propped up in no small way by money laundering. this is what needs to be investigated.

frankly I don't really care, we 'interfere' in foreign elections all the time

And I am sure the citizens of those nations welcome our interference as a wholesome addition to their democratic process, leading to better outcomes for themselves and the world.

as a general observation not directed at anyone in particular: it is an honorable thing to admit when you might be wrong, indeed it can build your credibility for occasions when you are confident you are right.

(def. not directed at previous poster btw)

whether he "colluded" and whether that is a crime or an impeachable offense is a bit of a misdirection at this point. he clearly has SOMETHING going on with Russia, given the blatant lying about his dealings with/in Russia and his fawning over and deference to Putin.

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 16:23 (four hours ago) Permalink

IMO it's this kind of fuzzy thinking that got us here in the first place. Something Russia. Donald Trump admires strongmen and seeks alliance with them. He's also a liar by nature. I don't know what you mean by "misdirection." I really don't think there's a grand plot here that hasn't been uncovered. Donald Trump is a massive fraud in innumerable ways and it's all out in the open.

lol ok. IMO noticing the Prez has lied about his connections with an adversary and is ridiculously deferential to its leader prompts an investigation into his connections with that country. Mueller investigation was not that; people hoped it would turn into that but at this point it hasn't appeared to. I don't get why I'm supposed to have the specifics on what DT has going on with Russia. He's lied about stuff and he's weird wrt Putin. Frogbs otm re: money laundering. Saying "well he's a liar plus has a hardon for strongmen" doesn't explain it at all.

what "got us here" is that 1 of the 2 parties has no interest in finding out his Something Russia

why would they? if you're an american fascist why would your relationships with foreign fascists be something to be investigated? if you're the party in power why would the guy who put you in power be someone to be impeached? wtf is this "country" people talk as if we're all pulling for together?

crystallizing the planetmurdering issue of democratic governments worldwide degenerating into rotted, fragile fronts for a global oligarchy that openly nature-assisted genocide-- even of the unresponsiveness and absurd corruption of the u.s. political system in particular-- into "donald trump has a treasonous secret" is no use at all. sometimes people are like, it puts a face to it! but it doesn't have a face, and putting a face to it makes it stronger.

*openly seeks

it's trump's whole shtick anyway: you thought there was a world? actually there's only me. think about me. the important thing is me. will i stay? will i go? will i be a winner or a loser? nothing means more than me.

Trump is "propped up by money laundering" in the same way that many NYC real estate developers are. Luxury real estate is a common device for money laundering. That's not enough to mean he's "doing the bidding of Putin." I really don't think he is, I think it's a silly theory.

It's high grift, not high treason. There are a million better things to try to nail Trump for than "selling out our country to Russia." And a million more effective ways to turn voters against him than making that bloated claim.

he was really doing Putin a solid when he bombed Russian military in Syria

Taibbi is now just straight up lying about when other media wrote what:

I’m really mad about this.

Media people being self-righteous about alleged media failures on the Russia issue are *making things up* about other media outlets in order to create an exaggerated sense of their own righteousness goodness. https://t.co/fUMepTYxwP

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) March 26, 2019

both taibii and greenwald favor the approach where they sort of conjure these obviously idiotic ideological opponents so as to make themselves seem like they are daringly speaking truth to (ignorant) power. if they actually engaged with the more nuanced and wider spectrum of opinion and approach they couldn't maintain the pose (and perhaps their self-image). i find that taibbi still has smart things to say (or at least i can enjoy his writing) while greenwald has been useless for years. but these days they both mostly take the route of easy, snarky righteousness rather than being serious observers of the situation.

the whole "I told you so" victory lap is nauseating because A) Mueller still indicted 37 people (including the guy running Trump's campaign), B) we still have no clue what's in the report and just have to take the word of Trump's hand-picked stooge, C) it *explicitly* says he is "not exonerated", D) his entire business empire was exposed as fraudulent in the meantime, and E) the entire time Trump was investigated he did everything he could to make himself look as guilty as possible. Like, his hand's in the jar, there's cookie all over his face, and the investigation just says "well we can't know he ate *that* particular cookie, no you can't see how I came to that conclusion". Republicans are simultaneously claiming that the report completely exonerates him of all crime and also that it can't be released to the public, and no one's calling them out on this. It's sickening.

one more thing - when Hillary Clinton was cleared of email crimes by the FBI the response was NOTHING like this

NYT front page deep-dive today suggests future presidents (if any) will now see fed law enforcement as their personal tool, and will never be in danger of "obstructing justice"

thx Mueller