The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

[liminalOyster]

Dunno. I've noticed it a few times but I'm not keeping track. Still enough so that I have the impression there's a multilateral editorial process and it's not simply Glenn's mouthpiece.

[dada]

What is the Russian Conspiracy as RI subject? What sets it apart from the Russian Conspiracy as a regular, plain old subject? The internet has become more RI-like over the years. Still, it isn't RI. What do we bring to the table that's different? A unique blend of juxtapositions, a different flavor of insight? I'm curious what people think.

Imagine that even one-third of the energy in the Russia hysteria over the last year had been devoted to the real Republican voter suppression in the very states that won it for Trump, the ones that Stein did and Clinton did not contest. Or to gerrymandering. Or to talking about single-payer health care, student debt relief and higher wages, rather than Trumputin, Trumputin - exactly the strategy that helps Trump in the end.

I can imagine that. In imagining it, I find it more difficult imagining the imagined causes than the imagined effects. Devoting energy to the issues above comes too close to a scary place for a majority of people. They're worried about starting a chain reaction. The dreaded domino effect.

It would require a greater willingness to demystify 'sacred' institutions, question fundamental assumptions. Can we even entertain the idea that Democracy has failed us. Of course not. The office of the president is necessary. And being a human makes one a consumer, by default.

And of course, the spectacle will not bite the hand that feeds it. That's just beyond imagination.

Society wants to have its cake and eat it, too. We want to be rid of the trappings of authority, while maintaining the structures of authority.

[seemslikeadream]

According to data collected by Erica Chenoweth at the University of Denver and Jeremy Pressman at the University of Connecticut, marches held in more than 600 US cities were attended by at least 4.2 million people



it seems this just has not gotten enough attention...people can do a number of things at the same time...women have been doing this like.....FOREVER

Women's March: Power to the Polls las vegas

Judy Crell, 75, (left), and Maureen Wilson, 59, met at the march last year and attended this year together. Roger Kisby for RollingStone.com
But it's not just a feeling they're looking for. It's action – action that they're sure is coming. "I've noticed on my own that the tide is turning," Wilson says.

"Yes," Grell chimes in, clutching her homemade "Impeach" sign. "The tide is turning."
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/w ... ns-w515703

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40389

JackRiddler » Fri Jan 26, 2018 9:31 pm wrote:
Imagine that even one-third of the energy in the Russia hysteria over the last year had been devoted to the real Republican voter suppression in the very states that won it for Trump, the ones that Stein did and Clinton did not contest. Or to gerrymandering. Or to talking about single-payer health care, student debt relief and higher wages, rather than Trumputin, Trumputin - exactly the strategy that helps Trump in the end

.

Womens March ....check

gerrymandering.....we are working on that.....check

single payer.......individual states are taking care of that ...check

there will be a democratic House and Senate in 2018.... trump will be gone in 2018 and there will be a democratic president in 2020

no worries Jack women are taking it from here and have it handled

[Elvis]

Elvis, you better believe the contempt is mutual. In fact, I think it's long past time to block your bullshit.

There you go again! I don't hold you in contempt. I just think you're wrong. And smug, and too full of certainties. And frequently disingenuous in your arguments and characterizations.

Blocking me is your reaction to being called out on false equivalencies, fact-fudging, logical fallacies etc.; your best excuse was "I wrote that in haste" but you never corrected the error upon which your article's point depended. It's very hard to have a real discussion with you when you stonewall that kind of criticism and resort to questioning the mental fitness of those who don't see eye-to-eye with you.

[Elvis]

anyone want to list any reporting Maddow has done that was false?

Well, Maddow is not a reporter. She's "an American television host, liberal political commentator, and author."

She's a commentator, an "opinion maker" as they say, with a big audience, and I always get the feeling she's trying to keep the nation safe from radical change.


What she does, in her words:

All I read all day long is news and analysis and stuff. I read the same stuff that everybody else reads.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... nders.html

[Elvis]

If I met Sean Hannity and he invited me to a party? Are you kidding? I would TOTALLY go.

[Elvis]

article was already aptly mocked and derided

Well that settles any question! Nobody wants to be mocked and derided! I'll go with whatever you guys say.

[Elvis]

Nah. She's not all that scripted, or it wouldn't take so long to fail to make a point.

LOL.. point taken. Yet she adheres to a partisan outline that may as well be a script. I think she means well.

Could as well be said that she is true to her convictions and works for a media group that supports her POV.

Yes, that's another, kinder way of saying what I'm saying.

Why can't e.g. Noam Chomsky have a show on MSNBC? Because Chomsky's too far off the reservation. In her off hours Maddow studies national security issues (reading "what everybody else is reading"); does she read Chomsky and Edward S. Herman? Peter Dale Scott? If she does, has she ever had them on her show?


P.S. I'm okay with MSNBC at least as a counter to the superpartisan FOX Noise. As a "progressive" platform they could be much better, they could be more progressive.

[Burnt Hill]

Even less profound than I expected and I didn't expect much. I was hopefull though.

Popular Recommended By Rachel Maddow Books

Idiot America: How Stupidity Beame a Virtue in the Land of the FreeIdiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free (Hardcover)
by Charles P. Pierce (shelved 1 time as recommended-by-rachel-maddow)


Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of DiscontentOur Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent (Hardcover)
by E.J. Dionne Jr. (shelved 1 time as recommended-by-rachel-maddow)


Twilight of the Elites: America After MeritocracyTwilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy (Hardcover)
by Christopher L. Hayes (shelved 1 time as recommended-by-rachel-maddow)

Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in AmericaSister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America (Hardcover)
by Melissa V. Harris-Perry (shelved 1 time as recommended-by-rachel-maddow)


How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on TerrorHow to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror (Hardcover)
by Reza Aslan (shelved 1 time as recommended-by-rachel-maddow)

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/re ... hel-maddow

[PufPuf93]

Let's face it, the Russian State is building its popular base on a right wing populism which includes significant elements of Misogyny and Homo/Queerphobia as building blocks of a crude Nationalism which gives the bosses carte blanche to lie, cheat, steal and murder as needed. The same holds generally true for the USA.

Neither of the above represents any kind of credible way forward towards collective liberation.

No doubt. But simply being insidious isn't evidence of collusion in election influencing. I've loathed all of what you describe here for at least a decade. But bearing all the same fundamental skepticism of domestic media, intelligence agencies, etc that I did before November 2016 hardly implies I've come under Putin's spell.

Exactly.

What is going to be concluded by all the investigations is that it is skeazy business men all the way down and no clear connection to the Russian State.

That conclusion is going to be the plausible deniability that keeps Trump in office.

The Trump investigations should have been on financial crimes and corruption regardless of State, though many are Russians.

The "parties" that put Trump in POTUS were the same "parties" that had HRC as Democratic candidate and preferred Trump over HRC as more "useful".

Trump will be POTUS until he is no longer "useful".

I am much on the same side as SLAD and also AD but they unfortunately are supporting in "RussiaGate" what will end up the cover and plausible deniability to keep TRump in office and not his downfall.

I hope I am wrong.

[American Dream]

By no means do I support the institutional forces targeting Trump as a credible alternative to what he represents. I do think they can be useful to the careful researcher and activist however. I start with Bernie Sanders, the DSA etc and from their look to more grassroots non-state forces that are grassroots, feminist, socialist etc.

I do think that there is important Russia info coming forward which tells us a great deal about how the System really works. When Russia defenders suggest that I therefore must love Nancy Pelosi et al, I think it is sometimes a straw man/propaganda ploy but often just reflects a particular political view which centers on Dems vs. Republicans or maybe third positionist "neither left nor right".

When all is said and done, a person who cares about migrants, queer people, people of color, women, the Earth, etc. etc. has plenty of reasons to hope Trump reaps what he has sown. Russia is the finger and not the Moon.

[Sounder]

dada wrote...

Society wants to have its cake and eat it, too. We want to be rid of the trappings of authority, while maintaining the structures of authority.

The System constantly presents new 'problems'' to be solved, as if, then the System will work properly, if only we can fix these 'problems'.

Whatever 'bad' man needs to be deposed ATM, -all testimony is suspect given the lies that have led the way to carnage for the last few decades.


All done as transference, projection, distraction from the fact that it is the System itself that calls for closer inspection.

So yes, people want authority structures but by refusing to admit to it, become open to acting out their unconscious programming.

The rest at link.

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/2018 ... l-poverty/

Finian Cunningham

......Surely, if there were any standard of intellectual and journalistic integrity, the claims made against Russia should be tested for objective credibility. But they never are tested or challenged. They are simply mouthed, echoed and amplified by politicians, think-tanks and media.
Of course, that’s not to say the West is devoid of intelligent thinkers. Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen, media analysts like Ed Herman and journalists like John Pilger are indeed there and admirably outspoken in their dissent. But their voices of sanity are drowned out by the cacophony of nonsense that dominates public discourse.

US-based political analyst Randy Martin says that Washington’s political class is especially bankrupt in intelligence.
He says the American narrative of accusing Russia "has become exhausted" from lack of credibility. "It has become so tired from lack of facts and credibility, ordinary common-sense citizens have become weary of it. The official Washington description of the world has no longer any relevant application to international relations."

Martin asks: "How can any country chart a viable direction when its strategic thinking is so fundamentally false and, in effect, based on paranoid delusion?" He adds: "It is inevitable that if a nation or group of nations construct policies and allocate resources based on a fundamentally erroneous assessment of the world then such a direction is bound to result in disastrous failure and collapse."

[seemslikeadream]

Exactly.

What is going to be concluded by all the investigations is that it is skeazy business men all the way down and no clear connection to the Russian State.

That conclusion is going to be the plausible deniability that keeps Trump in office.

The Trump investigations should have been on financial crimes and corruption regardless of State, though many are Russians.

The "parties" that put Trump in POTUS were the same "parties" that had HRC as Democratic candidate and preferred Trump over HRC as more "useful".

Trump will be POTUS until he is no longer "useful".

I am much on the same side as SLAD and also AD but they unfortunately are supporting in "RussiaGate" what will end up the cover and plausible deniability to keep TRump in office and not his downfall.

I hope I am wrong.

thank you.....I can't catch a break here lately..not only am I trashed for my obsession with trump/Russian Mafia now I am also a promoter torturing cats


SLaD the cat torturer ....surely that will make me stop posting here

for all the nasty things I have been called that one hurts the worst


I believe trump is being investigated for financial crimes (it's the easiest Mueller has all trumps tax returns) and those crimes are probably what are going to be used to make him step down...the FBI and CIA do not want what they know about the Russian mafia to see the light of day

money laundering for the mob, tax fraud

Mueller now investigating whether Trump’s FBI smear campaign constituted obstruction

but there is also

why would Mueller add a cybercrime prosecutor to his team in November. Loneliness?


We have really only seen what 9 of Mueller's prosecutors are doing.

That leaves 8 more, whose investigative actions we know nothing about.

Dear JD Gordon [and Jared]: Mueller Has 17 Prosecutors; White House Obstruction Accounts for Just One

empty wheel
January 27, 2018
The WaPo has a piece reporting (with details about John Kelly’s “collusion” with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is supposed to be recused) what I noted here: Trump wants the Devin Nunes memo to come out, even in spite of the warnings about how releasing it will damage national security.

It rather absurdly claims that Mueller is “narrowing” his probe.

As Mueller narrows his probe — homing in on the ways Trump may have tried to impede the Russia investigation — a common thread ties many of the incidents together: a president accustomed to functioning as the executive of a private family business who does not seem to understand that his subordinates have sworn an oath to the Constitution rather than to him.

More amusing is this anonymous quote from JD Gordon.

A person who has spoken with Mueller’s team said investigators’ questions seemed at least partially designed to probe potential obstruction from Trump.

“The questions are about who was where in every meeting, what happened before and after, what the president was saying as he made decisions,” this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to recount a private session.

This person added that while it seemed unlikely Mueller’s team would yield any evidence of a coordinated effort to aid the Russians — “If you were on the campaign, you know we couldn’t even collude with ourselves,” he said — the investigators might find more details to support obstruction of justice. [my emphasis]

We know it was JD Gordon because he said precisely the same thing in an op-ed just after the George Papadopoulos plea made it clear Gordon and his buddies might be in a heap of trouble.

Trump camp too disorganized to collude

Criminalization of policy differences has descended upon America once again. The viciousness towards a sitting president and his team evokes memories of Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment. In the “witch hunt” Clinton was impeached for something unrelated to the Arkansas real estate deal which sparked the Whitewater investigation years earlier. Like a Soviet secret police chief once said: “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.” Indeed.

We’re seeing the same thing today. The Trump-Russia collusion story is a hoax and “witch hunt” of this century.

Like typical conspiracy theories, usually the simplest explanation is correct. The campaign was chaotic, understaffed and underpaid, if paid at all. We couldn’t collude amongst ourselves. [my emphasis]

Since JD Gordon is — by his own account — incompetent, I’m going to repeat the substance of this post I did even as he first rolled out this line, just to help him out.

Update: I’ve been informed that Jared Kushner has also used this “we couldn’t collude because we’re too incompetent” line, so perhaps he’s the one who believes he’s not at risk for engaging in a quid pro quo with Russians and others.

Robert Mueller has 17 prosecutors. We’ve only seen what 10 of them are doing. And just one of them — Watergate prosecutor James Quarles — is known to be working on the White House obstruction case.

Here’s a census of Mueller’s prosecutors who’ve thus far shown what they’re working on:

Manafort docket:

Andrew Weismann (1)
Greg Andres (2)
Kyle Freeny (3)
Adam Jed (4), an appellate specialist, has appeared with these lawyers in grand jury appearances.

Papadopoulos docket:

Jeannie Rhee (5)
Andrew Goldstein (6)
Aaron Zelinsky (7)
Flynn docket:

Brandon L. Van Grack (8)
Zainab Ahmad (9)
Obstruction docket:

James Quarles (10)
Even in these dockets, it’s clear Mueller is nowhere near done.

Flynn may have a status hearing scheduled for Thursday (though it’s not formally noted in the docket). I suspect, instead, we’ll get a joint status report like was submitted in Papadopoulos’ case on January 17, which basically said, “we’re very busy cooperating, don’t bug us until April 23.”

And CNN just reported that Mueller’s team has drafted superseding indictments against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and Gates appears to be prepping to flip.

Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates has quietly added a prominent white-collar attorney, Tom Green, to his defense team, signaling that Gates’ approach to his not-guilty plea could be changing behind the scenes.

Green, a well-known Washington defense lawyer, was seen at special counsel Robert Mueller’s office twice last week. CNN is told by a source familiar with the matter that Green has joined Gates’ team.

Green isn’t listed in the court record as a lawyer in the case and works for a large law firm separate from Gates’ primary lawyers.

Green’s involvement suggests that there is an ongoing negotiation between the defendant’s team and the prosecutors.

[snip]

Superseding indictments, which would add or replace charges against both Gates and Manafort, have been prepared, according to a source close to the investigation. No additional charges have been filed so far. When there is a delay in filing charges after they’ve been prepared, it can indicate that negotiations of some nature are ongoing.

So even where we have some visibility, that visibility suggests there is plenty of work trying to see if there was any conspiracy tied to the election.

That leaves the following prosecutors, listed with their specialities:

Aaron Zebley (11): probably working on coordination
Michael Dreeben (12): appellate wizard
Elizabeth Prelogar (13): appellate specialist and Russian speaker
Scott Meisler (14): appellate specialist
Rush Atkinson (15): fraud prosecutor
Ryan Dickey (16): Cybersecurity (just added in November)
Mystery prosecutor (17)
I mean, Mueller hasn’t even revealed all his prosecutors yet, much less what they’re all working on.

But JD Gordon would have you believe the prosecutors’ attention to what meetings he and his buddies were in means Mueller is only investigating obstruction.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/01/27/d ... -just-one/

Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, one of the foremost experts on the U.S. Constitution, was asked on Twitter if Mueller could seize Trump’s illegally obtained financial assets while he’s still in office. Tribe offered this answer: “I’ve not yet explored this, but I’d welcome those who are expert in RICO and other avenues for prosecuting corrupt organizations and freezing their assets to RT and explain. Even if a sitting POTUS were held unindictable, an open Q, his nest of companies could be a sitting duck.”


As Director, Robert Mueller began the practice of sending every new agent class at the FBI to the Holocaust Museum to understand what happens when police become complicit in authoritarian regimes.

and last but not least ...put this in let's have some fun with trump category

trump State of the Union risks being upstaged by Stormy Daniels interview on Jimmy Kimmel




@ Rory and Jack

Jeremy Scahill retweeted the "Intelligence hackers from Dutch AIVD (General Intelligence and Security Service) had penetrated the Cozy Bear computer servers" story

Alternet

Dutch Spies Caught Russian Hacker Breaching Obama’s White House and Dem Party
https://www.alternet.org/investigations ... hite-house

Jeremy Scahill ...Alternet or little Suzie...who can say?

apparently Scahill and Alternet are now put on the FAKE NEWS WATCH LIST!! (why does that fake news sound so familiar...who else beats that phrase into the ground?)

Beware you have now been warned Suzie is now the go to girl according to Jack and Rory

One question Is Scahill the new Judith Miller, Jack?

[liminalOyster]

I do think that there is important Russia info coming forward which tells us a great deal about how the System really works.

I like the idea that we might learn more about how the hidden nefarious arm of geopolitics works by its reveal in Mueller's investigation of Russia/Trump collusion. But I think that means bracketing off the machinations of media/propaganda that are currently in their fullest swing, albeit, you say, on the side of good right now. That part of the machine is getting beta-tested towards full normalization everyday. And on "the resistance's" fabled Trump impeachment V-Day, it will be hungry for new wars in new lands.

[JackRiddler]

When Russia defenders

Strawman, followed by projection:

suggest that I therefore must love Nancy Pelosi et al, I think it is sometimes a straw man/propaganda ploy

This discussion at least to me is not about why the Russian government is or is not so bad, any more than the 2002 debate about WMD allegations was about whether Saddam Hussein was bad. When I point out the ludicrousness of most current American "Russia" talk, I do not defend "Russia" any more than pointing out the WMD lie was defending Saddam.

What is the Russian Conspiracy as RI subject? What sets it apart from the Russian Conspiracy as a regular, plain old subject?

I didn't title this thread, or I would have avoided the useless and meaningless trigger word "conspiracy." I thought the point of it was to have a meta discussion on the phenomenon of the current Russia talk in the U.S., instead of another compilation of corporate media, neocon and D-propaganda about imagined Russian plots to wage war on "American democracy" by hacking U.S. elections and Vermont power grids and brainwashing Midwest populations using $100K in FB ads, etc. etc.

.