Having abandoned my philosophical training for the car wreck that is American politics, I’ve avoided the car wreck of politicized academia. Thanks for that.
Stuart Stevens savages Trump with some of the choicest quotes, but I think we all get it now. How many more quotes do we need? Find some other sources.
Washington Post reporters continue to get harassed at Mike Pence rallies even though Mike Pence doesn’t really want them to be harassed. How long before people starting calling Pence a “poodle”?
I can’t let it pass without noting that former deputy and acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Michael Morrell, says “Mr. Putin ha[s] recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” If he actually believes that, well…does he actually believe that?
Cathleen Decker takes a look at how this unusual election is shifting traditional alliances, causing some Ohio Republicans to flock to Clinton even as Trump makes inroads with traditional Democrats.
It looks highly unlikely that Paul Ryan will lose his primary even though Donald Trump isn’t quite ready yet to endorse him.
Looking at Newt Gingrich’s recently disclosed debt settlement plan, he actually rivals Trump in stiffing contractors.
It’s not too early to get misty about Obama leaving office.
Have you ever heard of a churk? Me either, until now. It’s a cross between a chicken and a turkey, which is apparently hard to do since the two birds have a different number of chromosomes.
As a parent who is getting ready to send his son off to public school for the first time, I’m worried about a lot of things, but I didn’t think I had to worry about Super Lice. Goddamn it!
That’s it! I’m on vacation. Nancy will return on Monday. Have a great weekend and don’t shoot anyone in the face.
Putin is the most powerful and wiliest master-minds ever. Or Morrell is another in the long list of unfortunately real Jack D. Rippers. I’ll take the undercard as mental instability is common and master-minds are fictional.
Except Trump could stay in the property owner/development game after stiffing creditors and Newt is done as a candidate for political office.
Well Marie, looks like we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.
Mastermind, shmastermind, Putin has a deep intelligence background (to put it mildly), as well as (understatement of the year) all the connections one would need to do business in Russia . Trump, who has been slavering for business in Russia for years and years, loves to make deals. So far he has not been very successful. Manafort is the connection. Trump has known Manafort for donkey’s years. You know who introduced them? — Roy Cohn. Yes, that Roy Cohn.
This is not rocket science, it’s just intelligence 101.
Yeah, we all should know by now that Trump and Roy Cohn go way back. However, he was dead while Manafort was still in the bosom of DC movers and shakers like James A. Baker III.
And it’s not as if other US pols and their pals (Hunter Biden — cough cough) don’t have tight associations with all the other crooked politicians and oligarchs in Ukraine. Many of whom are eager to see the US send Russian back to the 19th Century.
WJC got a $500,000 check for a speech in Russia and HRC along with many others signed off on the Russian government’s purchase of a uranium mine operation in the US. If Russia/Putin were so very scary and very powerful, why was that approved?
Is that what America supported in Ukraine? Democracy? With a coup?
Yes, but we’re talking about Trump, aren’t we?
Are you saying that Trump isn’t being manipulated by Russian intelligence, or that he is but it’s OK because Putin’s not really that bad. But if he’s not that bad, why is does a guy like Trump follow his line? Or are you guys saying that Trimp is right to do that?
I admit that some things Trump says are true, such as that we should never have gone into Iraq. But Trump himself doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he doesn’t believe in anything except himself. Therefore there is another reason why he’s saying it. And that is because he’s being manipulated. It’s really obvious.
Sure, the US does stuff like this every day of the week, I mean interfering in other countries’ elections, etc. And I don’t think Putin’s got too much riding on this, he just wants us to know that two can play at this game. But none of this means that Putin is a good guy either.
I have no freaking idea if Trump is being manipulated by the Russians, the Chinese, the Clintons, little green men from Mars, or anyone at all. Nor do you.
I accept that almost all politicians are manipulated by powerful interests in the government, academia, or the corporate sector. One doesn’t need to look further than to note how wealthy sitting Senators become on a not so generous salary (particularly if they maintain a home in DC and their home district) to know that.
Do I like or endorse that? Of course not. It’s pathetic in any state that claims to be a democracy. But selective application of X is a crook isn’t going to get us anywhere in correcting this, if we, collectively, should decide that this is unacceptable.
Where I part company from the right, center, and left is with the paranoid propaganda and/or stinkin thinkin that all of them get into. All of those imaginary connections between A and M that they “know” must exist. It’s the crapola that has kept this country on a war footing since the late 1940s (at a cost of trillions of dollars) and stopped and reversed the trend of lowered income/wealth inequality. (ie you’ll be rich if the government reduces taxes on the wealthy.)
Elites in this country appreciate that laying down a level of paranoia among the populace is tilling the soil for whatever they choose to go against in the future that benefits them (be that actual shooting type wars, cold wars, economic wars against domestic or foreign populations). It was truly shocking to observe how fast the US public latched onto the WMD lie. One that was so blatant that a the average person could have figured it out. If not for the decades of priming that X was gonna come and get us. And the one time that X did come and get us, how did those decades and trillions of dollars in “security” serve us? Oops. AWOL.
I didn’t experience the height of the McCarthy era, but it remained very much present in the Vietnam War era. And Cuba remained a force to be reckoned with until only very recently (and some still haven’t let go of Cuba as an enemy). We’re never going to agree with what and how all other countries choose to organize themselves and live. But I’m not into favoring horrible dictator 1 over horrible dictator 2 because 1 buys US weapons to use on its domestic and neighbor enemies and schmoozes with DC and corporate elites while stuffing his/her Swiss bank accounts with loot stolen from the people.
“I didn’t experience the height of the McCarthy era .. “
Yes, well I did. I was very young, but I remember it extremely well. I remember that sleazebag Roy Cohn, and I see a straight line from him to Trump (they were very good friends, not just casual acquaintances) to Manafort to Yanukovich to Putin. You say you have no freakin’ idea and I agree, you don’t. You say I have no freakin’ idea either, but don’t tell me what idea I have or don’t have. You can keep your false analogies. Trump is not the victim of a new McCarthyism, he IS McCarthy — and the fact that shmucks like Manafort, Yanukovich and Putin are so closely connected means a lot more than your willful ignorance can deal with. If you don’t see it, fine.
And by the way, this is not a knee-jerk reaction to Putin. It’s too complicated to get into now, but I understand that Obama and Kerry have some degree of understanding with Putin about Syria, and that’s a good thing. The neocons can go fuck themselves.
The Army-McCarthy hearings were in 1954 and Cohn left government service at its conclusion. Thus, anyone under the age of twelve (and that would have to be a precocious twelve) at time would only have a dim and second hand awareness of those days. (I’m old enough to have experienced “duck and cover,” but as that wasn’t done in the schools I attended, my awareness of it is from movies and old newsreels I saw long after the fact). Even young Boomers learned of the McCarthy era from books, etc. It was important to learn of that if one were to oppose the Vietnam War; so, that what those I knew did. And, yes, Roy Cohn was placed on our everlasting shit list. (RFK was also on Joe McCarthy’s staff.)
Apparently, he went on to hobnob with lots of VIPs, either socially or as legal counsel (including the Trump family), after moving to NY. Worked with Roger Stone on two 1980 presidential campaigns. Cohn is long gone, but Stone isn’t and remains a part of Trump’s entourage. Slime.
I have no illusions about who and what Trump is. However, to select one of the many people that he has been associated with and elevate that to some McCarthy type guilt by association (one that’s even divorced from its anti-communist Cold War roots) seems fabulistic to me. (Trump’s sister was nominated by WJC to a seat on an appeals court and the Clintons attended Trump’s last wedding. What are we supposed to make of those relationships?)
Ukraine is complex. You want to line up with the neo-Nazis there, fine. I merely oppose US interference and choosing sides without much knowledge of the history, recent and much older, and all the current players, including their direct affiliations and objectives. There’s a real and long-standing divide in that country that never seems to be acknowledged by those around here as they choose the Yulia, Yats and/or Choco-boy side or even a recognition that that alliance has shifted over time.
In this comment you are leaving enough space that I can’t disagree very much. I would just say that I am not the one selecting “one of the many people … ” Events themselves have made that selection and I am simply responding to that factual reality.
Also, I have long had more than average interest in Ukraine as my mother’s family comes from there.
When I entered kindergarten, Harry Truman was still president. I would say there are two factors that influence my recall of that period. One is that my parents were definitely on the lefty side of center, and were constantly alarmed and angry about what was happening; the other is that I have, apparently, better than average recall of childhood experiences, back to the age of two. (I can date this because we moved house when I was two and a half, so obviously if I remember anything from the earlier place, which I do, I had to be younger than that.)
True, I had little understanding of McCarthy, etc., other than the clear signal from my parents’ reactions that it was bad. But some of this stayed in my mind ever after, and I gradually came to understand it as the years went by.
I remember when a documentary was made about the army-mccarthy hearings, and I saw that in the theater. It was called “Point of Order!” and it was released (as I just checked) in 1964.
However I also remember one day coming to a music lesson where the television was tuned to the actual hearings. So this had to have been in the spring of 1954. It was unheard of for the TV to be on in the room where I was about to have my lesson. Of course my parents were watching it at home as well, but this unusual occurrence especially stuck in my mind. Of course I didn’t understand much, and I certainly didn’t know what “point of order” meant.
Parenthetically, I am almost certainly I once saw Roy Cohn in person. For several years in the 1970s I worked on East 68th street in Manhattan. One day I passed a man on the street who looked exactly like Roy Cohn. Only later did I learn that Roy Cohn lived on E. 68th street.
What say you to this article that fleshes out Manafort’s history in Ukraine? I know, I know…dubious source.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russia-trump-manafort-test-the-news-17244
But, you might have more to add, first hand.
Well, that is an interesting point about Manafort trying to wean Yanukovich away from Russian influence. I HAD read that Yanukovich went against his advice on the European agreement, but it didn’t really register. Will bear it in mind in future.
But with a guy like Manafort, couldn’t this really depend on whose payroll he happens to be on at the moment?
I want to add, though, that (a) I believe my opinions about Putin and Russia are not especially influenced by the media. (b) I am not the sort of person that tends to soak up media propaganda uncritically.
As a matter of fact, there has been a lot of media propaganda against Putin re Syria, and I recognize it as such.
Still, I cannot believe that Trump, who has no policy ideas of his own, is just spontaneously coming up with one position after another that harmonizes perfectly with Russian policy aims. Positions that no other American in a comparable political spotlight would ever come out with. Positions that are not at all likely to gain much traction in American opinion.
Is that just a coincidence?
Thanks.
As far as Trump’s positions, it might be more what the last person he spoke to said… And never forget the clickbait factor.
You may find this link interesting. I hope it’s not behind the paywall.
The Best Defense: Sizing Up U.S. Defense Contractors
subtitle:Defense spending is due to increase regardless of which party is in the White House, but the stocks of most contractors already look pricey.
A LOT of selective editing on US/Russian Federation connections. Neolibs designed their market economy and it was grifter heaven for a decade, while their mafias got rich and the population depended on dacha gardens for food.
Neoliberal advisors promised that Russia would become more efficient and affluent by following an almost diametrically opposite path from that which Britain, the United States, Germany, Japan and modern China took to raise themselves to industrial power – the policies that classical 19th-century liberals endorsed to reduce the power of rentiers over the economy and government. Instead, post-Soviet polarization between rich and poor over the past twenty years has seen falling living standards and a dismantling of manufacturing, education and public infrastructure go hand in hand with creation of a new class of instant billionaires at the top of a steeper economic pyramid than exists in Western industrial powers. (http://michael-hudson.com/2012/11/how-neoliberal-tax-and-financial-policy-impoverishes-russia-needle
ssly/)
Well, yes, for sure. Are you suggesting that Putin set out to counter that? Or is it just a rival mafia?
Certainly Putin is an oligarch and in Russia that means mafia.
Is he more benign to average Russians than their previous governments? Interesting Quora thread…https://www.quora.com/As-President-of-Russia-is-Vladimir-Putin-really-that-bad
Ukrainians spent heavily in Washington, hiring a small army of top-drawer Republican lobbyists, including former congressmen Vin Weber and Billy Tauzin, ….
Vin Weber? The same Vin Weber that signed Bill Kristol’s PNAC letter, along with Jeb!, back in the late 90’s? Neocons liking Putin’s puppets? Hmmm!!!
Yes, a tangled cobweb to be sure. And anyone that thinks political alliances based on access to power, wealth, and natural resources are set in stone is foolish. They shift as needed to maximize power, etc.
Abstractions, abstractions. Yes, they do shift as needed to maintain power, but what is this particular shift, why, whose power and what effect is it having? It is to unite and strengthen all the forces of racism, neofascism, etc. in this country. Bernie Sanders said it best, Trump is the most dangerous candidate for president he has ever seen.
Bernie Sanders said it best, Trump is the most dangerous candidate for president he has ever seen.
Because it also exposes the corruption of the Democratic Party?
” If Russia/Putin were so very scary and very powerful, why was that approved? “
Corruption, plain and simple. It’s the Clintons, Marie.
Or “It’s always the money” and “follow the money.”
Must say you’re surprising me of late. Awakenings? or merely a rejection of Russia/Putin bashing if HRC and her campaign are doing it?
No, I don’t think the source matters. I hope not. Awakenings? Yes. But you wouldn’t like them. I have lost confidence in so many people that I am turning away from electoral politics. I feel increasing threatened by those I trusted. I am hunkering down in a mental bunker. I am returning to my childhood worldview – enemies are everywhere, trust only the family, when you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose, established society is your enemy.
If you are referring specifically to Russia/Putin. Putin is not the Devil. Nor is he the dedicated Communist that my 82 year old Conservative friend thinks he is. Nor is he a “good guy”. He is an adventurer, answerable only to himself. The best historical analog I can think of is Napoleon. Putin is Napoleon, betrayer of revolution. Russia, regardless of government, has certain geographical imperatives. Those make Russia dangerous to both China and Western Europe.
But overall, I think Howard Dean said it best when he said, “When your theory doesn’t fit the facts, a scientist changes the theory, not the facts.” Both Left and Right are trying to change the facts to fit their theories.
My complaints about the “Defense” Establishment? Not so radical a change. My allegiance was always first and foremost to the enlisted sailor and soldier. When I was part of DoD, I railed against the corruption that has become epidemic today.
Foreign policy? In light of what I said above, my view of foreign policy and military build-up is consistent. Enemies are everywhere. Eternal vigilance is the impossible price of liberty. But one who attacks everyone blindly like a mad dog, dies young. And we certainly shouldn’t be attacking anyone to fill some scumbucket’s wallet! War is not a game (although Game Theory applies). It’s life and death, for people, governments, and societies. War should be entered reluctantly and cautiously, but once entered, fought hard with no quarter, just like an alley fight in Chicago.
There it is, Marie. Not pretty. Mongrel dogs skulking in alleys never are. I wish it were different. I wish I had been born with a silver spoon and could afford to not look at life’s ugliness. But we cannot deny our genetic destiny. “Mongrels who ain’t got a penny” “… but tramps like us, baby we were born to run.”
Thanks, not that what you’ve written makes much sense to me.
Napoleon? The guy that invaded Russia. And let thousands of his soldiers freeze to death? Putin has a lot of countries to invade and occupy before he can repay France.
I may ascribe to Chalmers Johnson’s conclusions in his trilogy, but that doesn’t mean that our enemies are everywhere. Only where we’ve created them and for that we have to accept the consequences.
btw — through 6/30 (and assuming that his FEC filings aren’t a bogus as everything else about him is), the only debt listed is to himself. I struggle to see where and how he spent $70 million, but that’s a separate issue. So, it looks like campaign vendors are savvy enough not to extend any credit to the Trump campaign. After the past week, they may require advance payment to make sure the check clears before they provide any goods or services.
Enjoy your time off! The spittle-flecked insanity will still be here when you get back.
Chris Finan is a former Obama administration cybersecurity official, a Truman National Security Project fellow, and cofounder of cybersecurity startup Manifold Technology.
Sounding the alarm that the 2016 general election results may be rigged. Not by the GOP, Democrats, Diebold, etc., but by — ta dah — PUTIN!
Clickbait Galore.
“Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” If he actually believes that, well…does he actually believe that? “
I actually believe that, so I don’t have any problem thinking that he does. The operative word is “unwittingly”, a word which in Trump’s case covers a big area. Words like “recruit” and “agent” may sound odd in this context, but that’s intelligence talk. What I think they mean is, he’s unknowingly become part of a Russian intelligence operation; as for “agent” (probably “asset” would have been better, but they often seem to use the words interchangeably), that just means someone who does stuff for them — knowingly or not.
You believe that because …?
To become an “unwitting agent,” doesn’t one have hang with and travel in circles where one’s mind/interests can be bent towards those doing the mind-bending? Perhaps it happened on that golf course he visits in Scotland. All those covert Russian agents plying him with magical golf balls fly from the tee to the cup.
Or perhaps he hangs out with the owner of the Brooklyn Nets. Now that guy could be a Russian operative.
Or perhaps he jumped into the 2016 presidential campaign on the recommendation of someone he’s been known to hang with.
No, he’s just an old friend of Paul Manafort, who is now hiis campaign mnager, The two ere introduced by Roy Cohn. Do you know who Manafort is?
http://www.mintpressnews.com/wikileaks-trump-advisor-paul-manafort-tied-ukrainian-government-us-inte
lligence/219077/
Not proof, I grant you, but no, Trump wouldn’t have had to travel very far. I’m sure he talks to Manafort quite regularly, and would be surprised if Manafort had not introduced him to numerous friends and acquaintances over the years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintPress_News
You’re doing guilt by association. That’s not a defense of Manafort and his sleazy deals with wealthy/sleazy characters/politicians/dictators over the decades. But scratch the surface of any of those with a similar high profile and lots of ugly stuff surfaces. You think that Kissinger hasn’t participated in molding US FP to support one of his foreign pals to the detriment of the US?
If Trump is the horse Putin chose to ride to defeat the US, then Putin isn’t a smart or clever as he appears.
Pot calling the kettle black here.
inapplicable aphorism. But following debates/arguments in a blog comments format isn’t your forte.
You say “scratch the surface of any of those with a similar high profile and lots of ugly stuff surfaces.” That is true, but we’re talking about Trump now, and Trump is specific character at a specific moment in a specific situation in our country.
No, Trump is not the horse Putin chose to ride to defeat the US. Trump is the horse Putin chose to ride to thumb his nose at the US and to show that two can play at the same game.
But I’m more interested in the sector of the US that is falling for this crap. Namely, Trump supporters. David Duke supporters, etc. Not good.
And I am concerned to see Red/Russian baiting that can easily be re-routed to NATO mischief by neocons, post-election.
I’m more than concerned. The firewall for decades between US belligerent insanity and blowing up half the world was northern/western Europe. The last time it was operative was in 2003 when Germany and France said no to the invasion of Iraq. With the destruction of Syria and the predictable flood of refugees into Europe and leaking of religious based radical violence and terrorism into Europe, it’s now a powder-keg. Desperate and under pressure, people, leaders, countries do desperate things.
Odds and Ends…
Olympics Opening Ceremony
As worried as I am from as a Microbiologist thinking from a public health standpoint…
I do still love to see the parade of nations and the excitement of the athletes as they enter the stadium.
Watching the Olympics will count as my vacation from politics since I can’t go on a real vacation just yet.
No kidding on that miasma over there.
Leni Riefensthal standardized the programing ages ago at Nurenburg. Not that in Brazil the intentions are comparable, only the staging and the heightened emotion. They’re not, are they?
Nancy Pickard?
The author? lol No, probably WaPo Nancy.
Booman–Didn’t you know that those super lice are part of a NIH experiment gone bad? Yeah, the NIH was working closely with the US Army to develop new biowarfare agents, and the super lice were sort of a spinoff. Hillary Clinton and her BFF Henry Kissinger were brought in to do damage control, but instead they decided that your son and his classmates would serve nicely as a guinea pig for testing those lice. Depending on the outcome, the super lice will be dropped over Syria in barrel bombs cleverly made to appear to be coming from the Assad forces. (You know, just like those chemical agents that the Mossad dropped on Syria a few days ago.) The Syrian deployment is, of course, just a sort of appetizer, as the super lice will next be made available to the CIA when it stages its next coup d’etat in Ukraine.
I cannot freaking believe that you didn’t know all this.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the super lice also played an important role in the massive nation-wide voter fraud that Hillary ordered and which was courageously exposed here a couple of months ago.
Paul Kiernan tweet:
Glenn Greenwald response:
Not such good timing on Temer’s part as US political operatives are too busy at the moment to be helicoptered into Brazil and pull Temer’s chestnuts out of the fire. Timing, as has been said, is very important.
More:
This happened:
Enjoy.
Total aside here, but is Steven D OK?
Someone using that name is posting full bore nutbag election fraud truther conspiracy theories on other sites, and the guy is moving from bad to worse.
I Googled “Steven D electoral fraud” and one of the top hits was a link to a 22-minute Youtube video of a guy talking about that; looked very much like the photo of himself that Steven D posted here some months ago.
It doesn’t matter at all if Michael Morrell believes Vladimir Putin recruited Donald Trump as an agent. It only matters if the former CIA chief is LYING or not. Maybe I can be excused for ignoring the elegant qualifier ‘unwitting’, whatever that might mean. ‘An unwitting agent’, sounds very threatening.
RE:
No, you can’t be excused for that, for at least two very good reasons:
You’re not alone, though! Think I recall (last time I looked at this thread) others likewise choosing to ignore that qualifier — and its non-mysterious meaning, and the effect of that meaning on the original statement — to varying degrees.
But, no, that can’t be “excused”.
Trump is not exactly a beacon of self-awareness, is he? On the contrary, I’d have to say he is one of the most unwitting people I have ever seen in public life. (And in public life, there are a lot of unwitting people.)
about his own nature across a wide range of elements (skills, abilities, “brilliance”, lovability, discernment, etc., etc., etc.).
OTOH, don’t think the alternative hypothesis — i.e., just lying when he says he believes all that — can ever be confidently ruled out; I suppose he might be fully aware that he’s nothing but a con artist.
I love the look the President gives FLOTUS when the baby stops crying … priceless
Indeed. Watching him charm children is such a sweet treat.
And who could forget this?
in Olympic Real Football.
Heath, with good opportunity, put excellent shot on goal from left side, maybe 10 yards out. French keeper Bouhaddi got hand on it, just enough to deflect into the left post, but not outside the goal. Ball rebounded in front of goal. Carli Lloyd there to touch it in.
Only got to see second half, but very well played on both sides. France outshot U.S. 14-7 (on goal 5-3). But up until the goal (and for game as a whole), U.S. dominated possession. Once down, France counter-attacked furiously, but couldn’t manage to put one in.
Great fun.
there is none.
Fits under odds-and-ends, though.
Ref Michael Morrell, “If he actually believes that, well…does he actually believe that?” I am not a mind reader, but I think probably not. The lies pushed by the economic/political elite last week were even more disgusting than usual. Trump is really bad. There’s no need to invent stuff about him being a Russian agent, or calling on a foreign power to hack our networks, or committing treason. That is so egregious it almost persuades me to vote for him just to register a vote against the dolts who did that. Never have I had such bad choices presented to me, including Johnson and Stein.