rolling trump-russian collusion

be careful out there. it's not obstruction of justice when a republican does it. loretta lynch and eric holder on the other hand. whitewater, benghazi, harvard law review : )

He is also representing top White House lawyer Don McGahn in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

this is dirty as fuck

the whole thing stinks

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonleopold/newly-uncovered-russian-payments-are-a-focus-of-election?utm_term=.iq9EMr3RK5&bftwnews#.vdEEMN62RA

11/14/17 -- fusion GPS testimony with the house intelligence committee

https://lawfareblog.com/document-fusion-gps-ceo-glenn-simpson-house-intelligence-committee-interview

https://thinkprogress.org/blue-detectives-collapse-trump-russia-a42a94537bdf/

Despite his scant relevant expertise, as well as his public history of outright, fantastical fabrication, Seth Abramson (434,000 followers on Twitter currently) has managed to separate himself from the rest of his conspiratorial claque and carve a niche on both social media and cable news as a Trump-Russia analyst. Where Mensch, Taylor, Khan, and Garland generate as much mockery as they do retweets, Abramson has thus far managed to see his credibility somehow remain afloat

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/369797-russian-twitter-accounts-are-pushing-house-intelligence-to-release-shocking

Hamilton 68 is a joke but there are at least two or three articles per week taking it at face value, most of them include the caveat “Russia-linked” rather than “Russian”, as per the headline.

The dashboard supposedly follows around 500 accounts determined by the organisers to be “Russia-linked” but only about seven - including RT, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Relations, etc are ever named. The accounts are secret, as is the methodology for determining they are a) bots / trolls and b) Russian. They’ve indicated it is determined subjectively based on the idea that accounts putting out little but pro-Trump or “Kremlin-aligned” points are probably Russian bots.

The #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag has increased by 286,700 percent over the past two days and is being used 100 times more than any other hashtag by accounts Hamilton 68 is tracking.

The percentage increase is ludicrous at face value and the stats don’t match up with Hamilton 68’s own dashboard - which had “America” as the number one hashtag yesterday with 1200 or so mentions in the previous 48 hours. “Memo” didn’t crack the top ten, but even if it had, it would have needed 120,000 mentions from those accounts to be used 100 times more.

National Russian/Republican Association

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/opinion/nra-russia-investigation-trump.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion-columnists

nothing to see here, glenn greenwald : )

https://qz.com/1185452/government-shutdown-russian-bots-are-helping-republicans-blame-democrats-with-schumershutdown/

glenn greenwald sucks but "hamilton 68" is bullshit, we've been over this before

Well it looks like the Russian bots are trying to motivate Americans to get their work week started in a positive way! pic.twitter.com/WDMuyqF4rW

— Sam Sacks (bot) 🤖 (@SamSacks) January 22, 2018

Any journalists who sites this Hamilton 68 tracker as evidence of Russian influence campaigns is a total dumbass

— Sam Sacks (bot) 🤖 (@SamSacks) January 22, 2018

But what are these 600 accounts they track? Should I, as a journalist, bother to check it out before I report that the algorithm is sound? Nah, fuck it. I'm sure these folks are trustworthy as hell. pic.twitter.com/vY3pnsLxVz

— Sam Sacks (bot) 🤖 (@SamSacks) January 22, 2018

quartz > sacks

totally great that so many people lost their minds in the last 18 months

you tell 'em

Speaking of Glenn

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/glenn-greenwald-russia-investigation.html

Greenwald has been excommunicated from the liberal salons that celebrated him in the Snowden era; anybody who questions the Russia consensus, he says, “becomes a blasphemer. Becomes a heretic. I think that’s what they see me as.” Greenwald is no longer invited on MSNBC, and he’s portrayed in the Twitter fever swamp as a leading villain of the self-styled Resistance. “I used to be really good friends with Rachel Maddow,” he says. “And I’ve seen her devolution from this really interesting, really smart, independent thinker into this utterly scripted, intellectually dishonest, partisan hack.” His view of the liberal online media is equally charitable. “Think about one interesting, creative, like, intellectually novel thing that [Vox’s] Matt Yglesias or Ezra Klein have said in like ten years,” he says. “In general, they’re just churning out Democratic Party agitprop every single day of the most superficial type.” (Reached for comment, none of these people would respond to Greenwald.)

were there progressives/leftists in the early 70s who took a similar line on watergate -- that it was no big deal or a distraction from 'the real issues,' etc?

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 5 January 2018 21:49 (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://chomsky.info/priorities02/

(which mostly seems like an edited version of this, from 1973: https://chomsky.info/19730920/ )

I like how Greenwald one of those people who uses “elites” as perjorative shorthand all the time but in that piece dismisses people because they went to the “shittiest schools”

tbf all those people he named suck pretty much all of the time, he just sucks most of the time

How many sources has vox media sent to prison though

yglesias ain't bad. klein is kind of boring-ass turd tho

How horrible that any journalist would just churn out party agitprop, good on Greenwald for saying no to that and going on FOX instead.

Seems to me that Greenwald has chosen to position himself well outside the mainstream, but then cannot accept the idea that through this conscious choice he has forfeited the influence that comes with nearness to power. He ran way out into the wilderness, then shouts in his loudest voice, and wonders why so few seem to hear him.

Greenwald has been excommunicated from the liberal salons that celebrated him in the Snowden era; anybody who questions the Russia consensus, he says, “becomes a blasphemer. Becomes a heretic. I think that’s what they see me as.” Greenwald is no longer invited on MSNBC, and he’s portrayed in the Twitter fever swamp as a leading villain of the self-styled Resistance. “I used to be really good friends with Rachel Maddow,” he says. “And I’ve seen her devolution from this really interesting, really smart, independent thinker into this utterly scripted, intellectually dishonest, partisan hack.” His view of the liberal online media is equally charitable. “Think about one interesting, creative, like, intellectually novel thing that [Vox’s] Matt Yglesias or Ezra Klein have said in like ten years,” he says. “In general, they’re just churning out Democratic Party agitprop every single day of the most superficial type.” (Reached for comment, none of these people would respond to Greenwald.)

― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, January 22, 2018 10:34 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's really otm about maddow

the Snowden era

gah

Since it’s Jan 2018 it’s not even a matter of debate anymore that Maddow has been way more right on the Russia story than Greenwald has although I get not wanting to see a segment on it every night. His line on her is kind of coming from an ignorant place since the show has extensively covered legislation, citizen protests and gerrymandering etc.

A big story they seem to have gotten really wrong was the ambush in Niger a few months back where Maddow tried to connect it to the inclusion of Chad on the travel ban but he’s probably not aware of that.

he's really otm about maddow

notm. he bitches about her and she doesn't ever mention him. meanwhile there are people in this very thread denying the import of the russian government interfering in american elections. interception indeed ; )

https://chomsky.info/priorities02/

(which mostly seems like an edited version of this, from 1973: https://chomsky.info/19730920/ )

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Monday, January 22, 2018 6:51 PM (one hour ago)

that's right -- i remember reading a version of this years ago. it's nowhere near as loopy as the current "russia skeptic" stuff, chomsky actually makes a decent point and writes well. though he was writing well before watergate ended and it could be argued that the situation got way worse after this piece appeared -- the eventual case against nixon went well beyond the break-in itself and the eventual impeachment articles drawn up against him did include the constitutional violations chomsky discussses. at one point they included the illegal bombing of cambodia. the fact that chomsky just reprinted an edited version of this early commentary in 1981, without acknowledging any of this, is symptomatic of an ongoing weakness in his work: he never seems to change his mind, or adapt his critique to changing conditions. he never even seems to acknowledge that situations can change. this is probably why i've liked his early work (this included) better than anything he's written over the last few decades -- at the very least, it's much fresher.

he bitches about her and she doesn't ever mention him

it's almost as though she has 50 times the name recognition and her own tv show

(or at the very least, 10 times the name recognition, if Twitter is an acceptable metric)

Maddow has always seemed like a partisan hack to me

he's really otm about maddow

notm. he bitches about her and she doesn't ever mention him. meanwhile there are people in this very thread denying the import of the russian government interfering in american elections. interception indeed ; )

― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, January 22, 2018 12:50 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i have sadly seen the maddow show recently on a few occasions so i would tend to disagree

GG doesn't think maddow has become a "partisan hack" because she falls short of some imaginary standard of journalistic objectivity, he thinks that because she doesn't buy his stupid line that the russia stuff was made up by the democrats (working closely w/ that bastion of mainstream progressive sentiment, the fbi) as an excuse for losing the election. he's become an inexcusably lazy and obnoxious writer and he should've retired at least two years ago.

not stanning for rachel, jim in vancouver, but curious what you tend to disagree with her about vis-a-vis illegal russian government interference in the american presidential election in favor of the current (illegitimate) POTUS

No doubt Maddow has a partisan bias (though I think it's overstated) but calling her a hack is absurd. She's has by and large refrained from taking the tweet bait or getting bogged down in the more sordid stuff. It seems she does more far more original reporting than her peers across the big news networks.

not stanning for rachel, jim in vancouver, but curious what you tend to disagree with her about vis-a-vis illegal russian government interference in the american presidential election in favor of the current (illegitimate) POTUS

― reggie (qualmsley), Monday, January 22, 2018 1:35 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the heavily fanfare'd bit about trump's tax return was just awful. the general breathless reporting of any development in the trump-russia investigation as if this new thing is finally going to be the piece that puts everything in place (this has been going on for a year now?). the pee tape dossier being taken as completely credible.

the pee tape dossier being taken as completely credible.

weirdly enough I've never seen any MSM outlet, including Maddow's show, taking the dossier this way

i saw some segment on maddow about the bits of the dossier that have been found to be true which seemed to be suggesting that the dossier was roundly trustworthy though it was a while back now so maybe I'm remembering incorrectly

Greenwald hasn't said "the russia stuff [which?] was made up by the democrats"; he's said he wants to see what investigation reveals. You just don't believe him.

xp that's different though - I always saw that as a counterpoint to the other mainstream coverage of this which basically paints the whole thing as unconfirmed and potentially 100% bogus

No one necessarily believes the pee tape is real, as a fact, but several other aspects of the dossier have been verified, and were taken seriously enough at the start to get this whole thing rolling. To deny the dossier outright is akin to denying the findings of the entire intelligence community.

the pee tape dossier being taken as completely credible

this is curiously overblown for someone complaining of rachel maddow's "breathless reporting". christopher steele has speculated that about 70% of the dossier he compiled is "completely credible" and i've never heard rachel maddow (on the occasions i've watched clips of her show) exaggerate that. but ymmv

Greenwald hasn't said "the russia stuff [which?] was made up by the democrats"; he's said he wants to see what investigation reveals. You just don't believe him.

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, January 22, 2018 10:19 PM (eight minutes ago)

i follow GG on twitter and know his work p well, and this pretense that he "just wants to see the evidence" is bullshit. he's completely dismissive of any evidence that anyone puts forward, and he ridicules anyone who takes it seriously. it'd be better if he just admitted he wasn't interested in the subject and stopped writing about it.

the problem is that some stuff is made up, lots of reputable news sources have been caught not thoroughly vetting sources, etc. some stuff is made up by Democrats, some of it by Republicans, some of it is real, this is the nature of national intelligence work. it is like looking for propaganda in a propaganda haystack.

also people will tend to generalize, obv there is a spectrum between Yes/No, and different people have different thresholds for what constitutes a victory. party evangelicals celebrate victories and battles daily. i voted no but the minute evidence is found that removes Donald Trump from office and proves that he ordered them to do this i will concede it was true all along. until then i have accepted a reality where every country is spying on every other country, where independent actors all over the world can have conflicting or aligning goals while still acting alone, etc. Wikileaks probably would have done what they always do without Donald Trump telling them to go ahead, whether "puppets" of Russia or not they have leaked sensitive US intel in the past and have their own agenda.

it seems weird to me to be so upset about working with foreign influences, after more than a decade of working with Saudi interests and various groups in countries funding the terrorism we are supposedly at war with. if you bring up that Clinton did a lot of business with these interests, you were ignored, it was just us doing international business. funding militant extremist groups has been a matter of national policy for decades. people have accepted this reality. people know this type of back dealing goes on. contrast half a century of investment in foreign arms markets and mercenary groups to leaking e-mails and buying too much Facebook ad space. we have Mueller on the case, and the Dems go on about how awesome and brilliant the dude is, how many leads and interviews he is pilling up, i have faith that they will get to the bottom of it. if he doesn't find Trump directly guilty it won't really matter and the cultists will continue on.

J.D., i'm not talking about "evidence" in the press.

Adam B otm. oh, the Purity of American Democracy.

The “deep state is trying to take out Trump” spin that the right wing is really into basically originated with Glenn.

under W we went to war in iraq (how many people (american and non-american) died?) over less evidence than we have pinning putin and trump. i'm not remotely advocating that we go to war with russia over cozy/fancy bear but i remain mystified by lack of concern over the most epic ratfucking in american history, by our historic geo-political adversary, no less

No one necessarily believes the pee tape is real, as a fact, but several other aspects of the dossier have been verified, and were taken seriously enough at the start to get this whole thing rolling. To deny the dossier outright is akin to denying the findings of the entire intelligence community.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, January 22, 2018 5:26 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xp because it directly benefitted one of our two political parties, the one most concerned with holding power above the security and well-being of the nation. to acknowledge it would be to appear illegitimate. there's literally no consequence to just denying everything.

It's concerning! We don't know the scope of what happened yet. Was it bigger in effect than 'ordinary' GOP disenfranchisement? I don't know. xxp

disenfranchisement tactics, that is.