a quick poll about Russia and Donald Trump

Sorry, that’s presumptive re SV.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/11/30/president_trump_reportedly_keeps_pressing_senate_republicans_to_end_russia.html

Xp

Strategically it makes sense not to underestimate the capabilities of any notional threat but the default assumption of ‘organised state actor vs organised state actor’ has huge problems unless it’s grounded in something solid, imo.

That’s for a variety of reasons - if the threat comes from a diffuse, unconnected net of grifters and opportunists rather than a top-down government structure, responding to it as though it is a top-down structure isn’t necessarily going to be effective. You can’t address the fact that Montenegrin teenagers or Russian troll factories can monetise millions of clicks with news stories about Clinton having Morgellons by restricting the press access of Russian journalists, you can’t stop the shady commercial activities / lobbying of bit-part goons out to make a quick buck by sanctioning Rosneft, or w/e.

Another risk is that the absence of hard evidence of an organised plot with Trump collusion, should that be the case, might allow the clearly corrupt, entirely inappropriate, activities of his team to be spun as a ‘fake news’. Anything less than nailing him for the worst case scenario allows him to present the more lurid allegations as a witch hunt.

The article a few days ago about Russian liberals being disappointed in the tone of the coverage had some problems but one of the key things that rings true is that the ‘organised threat’ theory has massive echoes of Russian thinking on the risk posed by the US. Call it paranoia or sensible strategic thinking but the assumption that every embassy worker, every American journalist, every US politician, every US NGO and every Russian with ties or sympathies to them are part of a Washington plan to bring down the government has contributed to a fairly toxic environment for Americans and, if there was Putin vision of getting Trump into power, was probably the main driver. In that scenario, the outcome wasn’t gun-shyness, it was a completely unnecessary and counterproductive escalation.

Putin is no arch strategist, but someone who acts on compulsion, and often at cross-purposes with himself.

sounds like someone else we know

goin' with "something" today

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/michael-flynns-guilty-plea-sends-donald-trumps-lawyers-scrambling

Shortly after the news broke, Comey, referring to the Biblical Book of Amos, tweeted, “But justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

actually it was on instagram FAKE NEWS

also that's totally a piss tape reference right

he cross-posted to twitter /factcheckingcuz

It’s a pretty corny and self-aggrandizing tweetagram wherever it was posted.

That deal [Trump Tower Moscow] never came to fruition, but the intent expressed on both sides is deeply troubling.

vlad is maybe waiting on don to deliver rosneft from sanctions, jeff

picture yourself at the great gates of kiev, an exhibition of baba yaga huts

rolling trump-russian collusion

let's hear it for the "something" voters

pretty sure even I did not vote "nothing"

i bleeve everyone knew about his money laundering dating back to the '80s

he's still president last time i checked

big oaks from little somethings grow

donald trump: a grower not a shower, asserts ilxor dot com poster ‘aimless’

an oldie but goodie

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/a-series-of-revelations-about-jared-kushner-have-added-further-credence-to-a-key-claim-of-the-steele-dossier.html

Also note - unlike the NYT reporters, who tweeted their correction - @joshtpm never bothered to note the central claim of his viral tweet about Manafort & Deripaska was retracted. It wouldn't have mattered - retrations are ignored - but it's good to pretend to care about accuracy pic.twitter.com/Wr7T9lPwCj

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 10, 2019

fail dive

Enjoy this one as wel. 'The essence of Russia-gate' loll:

The essence of RussiaGate - over and over and over and over and over: pic.twitter.com/4JrgD1OHGu

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 10, 2019

Just a reminder that Greenwald himself took information from Russian intelligence to spread no-stories about Hillary.

get adopted by the Clintons, boy

Pathetic stuff from GG, thanks for sharing, Morbz.

i'm sure that factual error was not reported here, so i was compelled

The original story was hardly reported here...

no collusion! build the wall!!

Weird how Glenn clings to every minor correction to the story he’s been insanely wrong about for two years.

Well, yeah. The underlying point is that The Intercept got the story catastrophically wrong in 2016, and instead of admitting to having fucked up they've ever so slowly moved the goalposts, while Glenn claims to be a voice of moderation on the issue.

Weird how you guys have what my late papa would call an eternal "hard-on" for GG.

Jealous

Weird how you guys have what my late papa would call an eternal "hard-on" for GG.

given you shared the GG tweet that started this revive even you must know this is ridiculous

at least benghazi had bodies

SB, your posts seem to be based in a senseless contrarianism and knee-jerk cynicism, backed by no discernable position. whyzatso?

lol

sorry *conforms to ilx poster mentality* trump met with six russians while he was shitting and peeing all over himself!!!!!! tax returns !!!

sb is the non-awaited return of libtriggering mra renegade and general edgebore esleeping byag? If so this more clownish iteration is an improvement

stevie, to make it clear, the meaning of "hard-on" there is animus

xp when live cod were shipped to Asia from North America, their flesh ended up gross and mushy from inactivity. In order to keep the cod active, the fisherman started putting catfish in with the cod to nip at their tails and keep them active.

That’s what I’m saying, Bumblebee Guy but dressed as a gadfly

but SB, you post only to the most active threads

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/im-not-owned-im-not-owned-i-continue-to-insist-as-i-slowly-shrink-and-transform-into-a-corncob

anyway sorry please continue to discuss dr morbius retweet from glenn greenwald about trump russia

You are literally the Tubgirl of ILX

Emptywheel seems to think this does a good job of summing up her own suspicions:

Morning epiphany: @emptywheel was right and the whole Carter Page - Man of Mystery - was an elaborate distraction, an illusion used by the magician to make us look for fake conspiracy instead of at the real one. The Russians were clearly onto Steele and fed...(1/14)

— Larisa Alexandrovna (@larisa_a) February 6, 2019

tldr It was always about money

this has been more or less what I've always thought.

That seems really plausible. Also it doesn’t require any more evidence than what we know already.

What are Trump’s finances like since becoming president?

That's a pretty good read, and it boils down to "Trump's job was to unlock the house for the thieves."

Who the f knows regarding his finances, but I have a strong suspicion Mueller does.