I like that Chait went full Manchurian Candidate.
It would be even better if we could come up with a theory that Trump's parents were Russian spies.
I often really dislike chait's writing, because he has a fainting-couch attitude towards campus incivility, i.e. the new mccarthy-ism that's a hundred times worse than hitler, but this was excellent. there is apparently an advantage to committing crimes too fantastical or depraved to be believed.
It's definitely worth looking into more - I hadn't known the relevant timing in 1987. My main area of doubt is how much capacity Russia would have had to keep assets like him going continuously, especially from about 1990 to 2000. But who knows, maybe there was some initial cultivation in the 80's which went into desuetude and Putin was able to reactivate the connection.
I think there were almost certainly connections between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia of which Trump was generally aware (though I don't think those connections were as influential on the election result as, for rhetorical purposes, I'd like them to be). I think it's also true that Trump likes Putin because asshole game recognize asshole game, and because Trump sees Putin as a co-conspirator in Trump's larger project of deeply super stupid white nationalism. But this article is pretty much just "just asking questions" conspiracy building, as Chait admits, and seems pretty dumb.
And IIRC there were tons of people with a basically mercantilist-isolationist view of US foreign policy in the 80s, mostly driven by the perception that Japan and Germany were now richer than the US and why is everyone driving these Datsuns and we should have trade wars! I mean sure it's not a logical impossibility that Trump was programmed as a long-game Russian asset after a secret meeting in 1987 but it sure seems more likely that Trump self-programmed as a long-term asshole and has had occasional loose contacts with other assholes with some connection to Russia.
Its not like the Russia-Trump Collision of 2016 emerged out of whole cloth. There is a whole history of shady relationships and dealings that preceded and enabled it.
Trump's current fortune was made by laundering the money that oligarchs extracted from the rubble of the Soviet economy, and Putin is the King of that particular mountain.
Its irresponsible not to speculate how far it all goes back. 1987 isn't a bad guess.
I mean, in the grand scheme 1987 isn't qualitatively different from early 2000's when he hired Michael Cohen and leveled up in money laundering as business model.
It definitely seems like Congressional Republicans are accepting Russian influence/friendship as tacit quid pro quo for tax cuts + Supreme Court takeover, comparing their behavior this year (comity junket) with last year (when they passed more sanctions unanimously).
he hired Michael Cohen and leveled up in money laundering as business model
Right, and that probably provides all the connection you need, with the connection primarily being money, not being a sleeper agent.
I mean don't get me wrong the pee tape (or some version of it) sure seems plausible to me still.
If you want a much more measured recounting of Trump's long history with Russia, try Seth Hettena's Trump/Russia. Not much theorizing but lays out all the various known points of contact both in Russia and here through the years.
He was also on a recent Josh Marshall podcast* although it mainly focused on Michael Cohen and ties with the emigre and money-laundering communities.
*I recommend Marshall's podcast as pretty good at providing context and background for a lot of the developments. Unlike the fracking NYTimes, Josh uses his NYC background and folks like Hettena to color in the context of that milieu.
10: yes. Although I will say that the striking difference in his treatment of Putin and just about everyone else is ..um, well, extremely striking. But I suspect that can be best explained in narcissitic-grifteresque-strongman admiring psychosexual terms (especially given his buddiness with other despotic leaders-- hes just doesn't go the Full Monty with them).
Please don't wish me into the cornfield It's good that we elected this man President. A real good thing. And tomorrow... tomorrow's gonna be a... real good day!
Yeah, I listen to most JMM episodes which helps build up more of the story of what's there and what might be out there.
And IIRC there were tons of people with a basically mercantilist-isolationist view of US foreign policy in the 80s, mostly driven by the perception that Japan and Germany were now richer than the US and why is everyone driving these Datsuns and we should have trade wars!
I present as evidence the 1992 going on 1987 historical text Freejack, which posits a world in which America has been rendered a dystopian oligarchy after "losing the trade war" to Japan.
A theory where Trump becomes a Soviet asset and then remains an asset for a decade, for a separate government, before falling into the hands of Putin? is pretty stupid. Also it doesn't matter, basically every powerful political figure has an array of connections to a bunch of awful regimes, so no one is going to want to dig in that graveyard for bodies.
Yes. And I say that as a pee-tape believer.
On the other hand, if this can make the news be about Trump/Russia for the next week instead of where Alan Dershowitz gets invited to dinner, it's worth a look.
A theory where Trump Putin is a Soviet asset officer and then remains a Soviet asset patriot for a decade, for a separate government, before falling into the hands of Putin launching a neo-Soviet revanchist policy? is pretty stupid.
The Supreme Court choice will suck up all the oxygen for the rest of the week. Certainly it'll drop the confirmation of the Criminal Division head all the way off the radar.
I don't know if I know the technical definition of 'asset', or if there is one. But it seems not all that unlikely to me to speculate that the Russians identified Trump fairly early on as an influential guy, who it would be useful having a relationship with where he was indebted to them or at least well-disposed to them somehow. I mean, that's the status that they seem to achieved at a minimum during the 2016 campaign. Pushing the date at which that relationship developed back a ways on the kind of evidence Chait puts forth seems actually pretty plausible.
pee-tape believer
Cheer up peepee Jean..
21: Yes. They will always be on the lookout for greedy, unscrupulous people in positions of power in or out of government.
It's probably easier now that they are all in the same place.
A theory where Trump becomes a Soviet asset and then remains an asset for a decade, for a separate government, before falling into the hands of Putin? is pretty stupid.
I really like "for a separate government". As though there was one lot in charge from 1917 to 1991 and then suddenly they all just vanished away and Russia was ruled by a completely different lot from 1991 to 2000, with no connection at all to the previous lot.
And certainly there was a clean break in terms of intelligence operations. It's not like there are any other examples of American traitors who were recruited as spies by Soviet intelligence and carried on spying for Russia after the USSR collapsed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Edwin_Pitts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Trofimoff
21. All that has been public knowledge for years (as the article points out) it's hardly a scoop. Look, if the Dems can turn this into a winning political issue I'm all for it, I'll even pretend to care about it on twitter, but it's been over 2 years now.
Yeah, the "separate government" point is dumb, of course there was intelligence-agency continuity.
And to 21, certainly if you define "asset" to mean "someone we'd like to make an effort to have a good relationship with and keep generally well-disposed towards us" then it seems both obvious and incontestable -- he was a Soviet asset in 1987 just by virtue of taking the trip. But the Chait piece seems to be deliberately blurring that idea with the notion of Trump as a sleeper agent which seems, I guess not impossible, but pretty silly.
It's very easy to believe if he went to Russia and had a watersports session in 1987, the evidence would still be maintained throughout the transition.
Is there any particular reason why I shouldn't be extremely annoyed with Jonathan Chait, who seems like a high-strung dude with poor judgment (I am also a high-strung dude with poor judgment, fwiw), for writing an article deliberately blurring fact and bullshit about a serious matter? Why not just utilize his campus-rhetoric bluster and call it something like "The Moral Obligation to Bullshit"? (Okay, I'm mostly trembling with fury at my job today, but a little bit of it is Jonathan Chait.)
Sincere question. I'm a) open to being persuaded that it's a useful intervention and b) in a terrible mood regardless.
Chait manages to not be Andrew Sullivan better than at least one of this colleagues.
Ajay I clicked on the Hansen article and it says he was cut off after the fall out of the Soviet Union and he himself approached the Russians multiple times in the 90s to try and start spying for them again, so I'm not sure how that helps your point.
Let's not discuss treasonous FBI agents right now.
"someone we'd like to make an effort to have a good relationship with and keep generally well-disposed towards us" then it seems both obvious and incontestable -- he was a Soviet asset in 1987 just by virtue of taking the trip. But the Chait piece seems to be deliberately blurring that idea with the notion of Trump as a sleeper agent which seems, I guess not impossible, but pretty silly.
I may have talked myself into a more extreme position on this because I've gotten argumentative with Armsmasher on FB, but isn't it an inherently blurry concept? Like, Trump is definitely enmeshed with Russia now. Even if there's nothing new in this article, framing the known facts in terms of there having been a long and deliberately cultivated relationship seems like a useful way to think about it.
Sure, but there's a big difference in framing. "The KGB had a file on him which the Russian government now has, and there have been contacts going back a long time" seems definitely true but also worlds away from being a sleeper agent, which is definitely what Chait's article is trying to convey (at least as I, quickly, read it).
I mean I think someone like Josh Marshall would say there's a long and complicated Trump/Russia relationship on both sides. I don't think anyone can reasonably disagree with that. But the sleeper agent/Trump-acting-on-behalf-of-Russia-as-a-public-figure-since-1987 stuff seems pretty nuts.
"Sleeper agent" isn't Chait's terminology -- I think as far as he's going is arguing that there's a good shot that the long and complicated Trump/Russia relationship was being intentionally managed for Russian government benefit throughout. Or to put it another way, that it was a Trump/Russia relationship, rather than a series of unconnected contacts between Trump and various Russians over the decades. I don't think that's proven, but I also think it's not unlikely at all on the evidence.
here's a good shot that the long and complicated Trump/Russia relationship was being intentionally managed for Russian government benefit throughout
I'd be shocked if that wasn't true in some sense, but only for the simple reason that most things in Russia involve the government (and obviously did before 1991). But I'd be very surprised if "intentionally managed" meant that there was a long-term plan to get Trump to take political action that benefited the Russian government and that he was being long-term manipulated by the Russian government to do so, with kompromat or whatever, as opposed to just having Trump be someone who was on the Russian government's radar screen.
Certainly, collecting blackmail items and storing them was a KGB standard. They probably had a team of agents for every fetish.
I don't know if I switched sides or not.
being long-term manipulated by the Russian government to do so, with kompromat or whatever, as opposed to just having Trump be someone who was on the Russian government's radar screen.
It's a sliding scale, isn't it? That is, "on the Russian government's radar screen" would naturally include efforts by the Russians to get him either indebted to, well disposed toward, or intimidated by them, as opposed to inherently being merely a matter of passive observation. This doesn't seem to me like crazy conspiracy thinking, just a fairly plausible statement about how things are likely to work. Chait certainly didn't prove anything, but it's worth thinking about how thoroughly manipulated Trump has been, and for how long.
Asteele, where are you from? I want a chance to proclaim whether or not I give a shit if a country important to you has had its government subverted by a hostile foreign power.
Of course, we both know this is important to you, you just happen to be delighted by it, otherwise you wouldn't take every opportunity to declare how little it matters.
"Also it doesn't matter, basically every powerful political figure has an array of connections to a bunch of awful regimes, so no one is going to want to dig in that graveyard for bodies."
Or at least sufficient numbers of them do - in that they really are different, and it's a systemic problem being hyped as a problem localised to a single individual.
There may well be evidence of untoward stuff in both Trump and Brexit - but the stories aren't well served b6 the particular set of journalists and opinion writers that have chosen to champion them. (I notice Kendzior was tweeting LaRouche as evidence earlier)
Also it doesn't matter, basically every powerful political figure has an array of connections to a bunch of awful regimes, so no one is going to want to dig in that graveyard for bodies.
This seems really clearly false to me, or at least to use the word 'connections' broadly enough to have no meaning. I mean, I have Russian connections -- one of my daughter's best friends is the daughter of Russian immigrants who still goes back home for a month in the summer -- but that's not the sort of thing we're talking about.
Connections with foreign governments that are significantly personally or financially important to a political figure don't seem universal to me at all. What connections of that sort did Obama have when he was elected? (Maybe there's something obvious I don't know about?) I'll give you Bush, handwave family oil business Saudis whatever (although I'm unsure how much I'm imputing to him that's at a couple degrees of separation). Clinton, when he was elected? Bush the elder, sure, Saudis again. But Reagan? And so on back.
If we go back to JFK, I have notes.
But honestly, that sort of thing sounds all sophisticatedly cynical, but I don't think that makes it true.
I have no idea what is true about Trump and Russia, except that I very much doubt there will be an honest explanation. I suspect Chait might be right about a long-term link, but I wonder if making a case a long-term conspiracy doesn't distract or make it easier for Trump to defend against easier to prove allegations that might become public in the very near term.
Of course, the same could be said about the pee tape, but I have a better feeling about that.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't do a lick of harm. There are two categories of people -- the very small category of ones that are paying close attention, and the large category of ones that are paying little or no attention, but have at most a vague sense of the major nouns in the news. ("Trump, Russia...")
The ones who aren't paying attention are maxed out on being told that Trump is (FAKE NEWS!) being falsely accused of stuff that isn't true and can't be proven. One article that lays out some accurate, checkable facts and points out they look suggestive when you put them in order like that isn't going to influence how much they think the NEWS is FAKE. And anyone who's actually paying attention can take the speculation for what it's worth.
Probably. I wish for most focus on the money laundering. I think that's the place it will break if it does.
As long as people aren't lying, I'm happy with the 'throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks' approach. Let a thousand flowers bloom!
I would really appreciate hearing some narrative that accounts for all the relevant facts but under which Trump is NOT in any way a Russian asset. (By "asset" I mean: knowingly taking direction from agents of the Russian government because of financial ties or blackmail material (or both)). I've never heard anything remotely plausible.
He's pretty dumb. There are stories I could believe where he was taking direction from agents of the Russian government without knowing that was what was going on, at least for a while.
Yes, every is an exaggeration, I should of said "it is common".
In terms of raw IQ, probably not. In terms of paying attention to what's plausibly going on? I'd believe he could be suckered into anything.
I'm thinking more that he should know that he's a Russian asset than that he actually does, i.e. that they're helping him see the merit of taking positions favorable to Russia through a mixture of carrots and sticks while leaving his narcissistic little brain room to believe it's all his idea.
I mean, he perfectly well might know, I'd just be willing to believe that he could have stayed ignorant longer than you'd think.
I think he is conceited enough to think that, for example, a KGB agent who approached him in the bar and offered to pee on things for him was somebody really just interested in sex with him and not an obvious attempt to obtain blackmail material.
He obviously could have initially been taken in unknowingly (that seems highly likely), but some point the arrangement became explicit. He's not just pushing all the kremlin's preferred positions by chance, or because someone has persuaded him on the merits.
Unwitting agents are certainly a thing, in any case.
I'm going with Trump was compromised in 1987, and then was not the subject of one continuous operation, but was available for opportunistic Russians ever since.
(I notice Kendzior was tweeting LaRouche as evidence earlier)
Yikes! This confirms my long time suspicions of her (which is why I've never faved or retweeted any of her stuff.
AIPMHB, I wonder met a man in Bavaria who was stumping for LaRouche.
Actually I'm headed for the coast, hopfully to see some big goddamn waves.
But yes I'll take care. Seawater sucks.
Like an Iowan who walks outside to see what the tornado whistle is for.
The storm is still tracking well north, but science told me the waves should be arriving soon.
In Roc Island the wind doesn't blow, it sucks.
I think that's in Iowa actually.
"basically every powerful political figure has an array of connections to a bunch of awful regimes, so no one is going to want to dig in that graveyard for bodies."
See, this is pure bullshit of a particularly Trumpian kind. "Of course I'm corrupt. Everyone's corrupt. Yes, Russia murders people but you think we're any better?" And in this particular case it makes you sound all wise and cynical but anyone with any political knowledge knows it's wrong. As LB says: Obama didn't, Clinton didn't, Reagan didn't.
How representative is this racist dingbat of the prosecutors in southern California?
I mean, a government official calling Maxine Walters "a loudmouthed cunt from the ghetto" who should be shot is totally civil and proportional, right? It's just the sort of free speech that snowflakes want to ban, or something.
Ajay I clicked on the Hansen article and it says he was cut off after the fall out of the Soviet Union and he himself approached the Russians multiple times in the 90s to try and start spying for them again, so I'm not sure how that helps your point.
Putting aside the entertaining image of you frantically clicking through every link I provided to try to find something that vaguely supports your erroneous case.... that entirely supports my side, not yours. Hanssen was recruited by Soviet intelligence, as I said.
(He was not cut off after the fall of the USSR: you are lying about that. You aren't mistaken or poorly informed, because you read the article. The article clearly states twice that Hanssen cut off comms with his handlers himself because he was worried that he might be exposed after the fall of the USSR. He wasn't. You read that statement, just like I did, and then you decided to lie about it in the hope that people might believe you and think that at least some of the evidence supported you. Think for a bit about what you have done there, and what that makes you.)
In fact, he wasn't exposed after the fall of the USSR, because, as the article says, "Russia took over the demised USSR's spy agencies". He re-established communications with GRU and carried on spying for Russia, just as he had spied for the USSR, just like I said.
I for one believed that Hanssen had been cut off, because I am lazy. Lying works.
"See, this is pure bullshit of a particularly Trumpian kind. "Of course I'm corrupt. Everyone's corrupt. Yes, Russia murders people but you think we're any better?" "
I don't think its bullshit in a reduced form. There are a number of sectors in which success is likely to involve associations with all sorts of dubious characters. Essentially distrust real estate magnates operating in certain locales, and anyone who prospered in Russia during the Yeltsin era.
"Obama didn't, Clinton didn't, Reagan didn't"
OTOH Browder almost certainly did, until he didn't, at which point he recast himself as a whistleblower who was shocked, shocked at the level of corruption in Russia.
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Not huge, but big, and very beautiful.
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Serious question, how long has Asteele been around? ISTR the name from years ago when I was lurking, but not for a long time.
I mean, I'm pretty sure we aren't ever going to get a proper investigation into the role of Russian money influencing UK politics because too many of the wrong sorts of people would end up being implicated.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/25/how-britain-let-russia-hide-its-dirty-money
"I don't think its bullshit in a reduced form. There are a number of sectors in which success is likely to involve associations with all sorts of dubious characters. Essentially distrust real estate magnates operating in certain locales, and anyone who prospered in Russia during the Yeltsin era."
Yes. But that is a severely reduced form compared to "every powerful politician".
Since we've mentioned Josh Marshall several times, here is a good summary of his thoughts. I've combined three tweets where his is responding to Tom Nichols who is a "Sovietologist" at the US Naval War college which is pretty much a longer version of what JMM says.
Basically agree with this thread. You put it all together and there's really no innocent explanation for all the facts. The question is whether Putin/Russia have what you might call a soft influence over Trump - through cultivation, friends, business leverage, knowledge that they know a lot or whether it's something more overt and direct. We simply don't know that yet. But both are extremely bad and if Trump is basically bulldozing the US global imperiujmi [sic--I assume that's "imperium] It doesn't matter terribly whether he just wants to be helpful or whether he's being forced. We'll marvel one day how anyone could seriously question the big picture of what is happening here.
And I suspect we'll get an SC thread (or maybe we're all too depressed and frustrated) so I'll highlight this from JMM which I saw while searching for his Russia tweets:
Kavanaugh has shown a judicious flexibility* about whether presidents can be charged with crimes or impeached, depending on whether they are Republicans or Democrats.
He links to this article about Kavanaugh's arguments in co-writing the Starr report** and his later recantation after having served in the GWB administration.
Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, the front-runner to replace Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court, once argued that President Bill Clinton could be impeached for lying to his staff and misleading the public
Judge Kavanaugh, who after working for Mr. Starr served as an aide to President George W. Bush, has since expressed misgivings about the toll investigations take on presidents. In 2009, he wrote that Mr. Clinton should have been spared the investigation, at least while he was in office. Indicting a sitting president, he said, "would ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national-security crisis."
*This convenient "flexibility" is being cited as a strength by fuckos like his Yale Law prof in the ready-to-go NYT piece on the liberal case for him.
**God save us from righteous white guys who worked with Starr. Conmey, this fuckhead (and of course Starr himself). It's a filter for bad faith righteous asswipes.
if Trump is basically bulldozing the US global imperiujmi
Speaking of, here's Donald Tusk throwing shade this afternoon:
Today Europeans spend on defence many times more than Russia, and as much as China. And I think you can have no doubt, Mr President, that this is an investment in common American and European defence and security. Which can't be said with confidence about Russian or Chinese spending.
I would therefore have two remarks here. First of all, dear America, appreciate your allies, after all you don't have that many. And, dear Europe, spend more on your defence, because everyone respects an ally that is well-prepared and equipped.
Is everyone in London going to the big Trump demo on Friday? I don't think it will be possible to plan a meetup, but I'm really looking forward to it.
"Yes. But that is a severely reduced form compared to "every powerful politician"."
Yeah, but that was someone else's claim. I think its realistic to assume that there are a range of possibilities from "Trump the Russian asset" to "Trump the businessman who profited from corrupt connections in Russia". The latter would make sense of why these things haven't been investigated more thoroughly - because it would implicate large parts of the financial establishment, and why its been left to people who write things like:
"In 2010, the private-wealth division of Deutsche Bank also loaned him hundreds of millions of dollars during the same period it was laundering billions in Russian money."
"At a time when Justice Kennedy's son was the global head of Deutsche Bank's real-estate capital markets division."
This is driving me nuts, BTW. Chris s? Are you new, or have you just slightly changed your pseudonym? (That is, I've been vaguely assuming you were Chris Y, and then I realized that I have no basis for that at all.)
Oh wow, I was also reading Chris Y.
See, see! This is why 'common first name followed by an initial' pseuds are the worst pseuds!
(Chris s -- if you're new, don't take it personally. I've been complaining about confusing pseuds here since Bush's first term. And commenting such that mixing you up with Chris Y is reasonable is a compliment.)
We could helpfully call them chrissy and chrisssss to distinguish.
82: ages. Posts infrequently on a variety of topics, generally plays by the rules here.
Chris s is obviously Christopher Steele. Wait, or maybe Asteele is Christopher Steele? Never mind, I'm lost.
Yeah, Asteele is an old hat. (Since 1987?)
I think the phrase I was reaching for is "an old hand".
Good! Asteele, sorry I thought you were a Russian mercenary and/or robot! But you're still utterly wrong.
Nice to see heebie giving Asteele the old reach-around.
Not super new, by I haven't posted much - and am not 'Chris Y'
I have just learned to tell apart the Daves. Next I'm working on the kayaks.
For the LKs, I'm this, but with "keyaki = woman, kayak = man".
103: Have you considered changing your handle to 'Wry Cooter'? (And if I've ever interacted with you directly before, I thought you were Chris Y. My apologies.)
I do think it raises serious alarms that there is no innocent explanation for Trump's relationship with Russia. Republicans have already consented to give cover to Trump without knowing what Trump is even accused of doing. So it's entirely up to the press and the left to set the factual bar for the impeachment debate to come.
The lack of any coherent defense isn't a license for journalists to draw causation from mild correlation, and this article is absolutely dreadful on that count. Not quite a full Louise Mensch, but Chait's dipping his toe into conspiracy building.
Chait's dipping his toe into conspiracy building.
I suppose so, but I don't mind. He is quite clear on the terms of his speculation: What if the unknown information is worse than we suspect at the moment?
I think it's a useful speculation, and it's helpful to have everything put together in one place. The much more grave error in journalistic dealings with Trump is the willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt where no doubt exists.
As evidenced by in particular Asteele's comments herein, one of the more frustrating aspects of discussing this entire family of crimes is the ease with which various observations can be maximally read to as to seem absurd or self-evidently false. It's hard even for good faith debaters to be clear on what they're positing, and when you add bad actors and unprincipled hacks into the mix...
I feel like I'm reading a different thread.
109: I need clearer antecedents for:
"this entire family of crimes"
"various observations"
"what they're positing"
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Speaking of entire families of crimes, I'm amazed that this wasn't (apparently) a 4chan stunt:
https://www.refinery29.com/2018/07/203982/feminist-apparel-ceo-alan-martofel-fires-staff
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89,107. The Financial Times has been writing about crooked financing of Trump's shenanigans for a long time. For instance
I agree that speculative journalism is counterproductive. Well-researched backgrounders on money laundering over and over again.
112: Right. To amplify on 108.last: It's pretty clear that Russia has kompromat on Trump, given his financial dealings. The question isn't whether Russia has leverage, but rather, what sort of leverage and what is Putin doing with that leverage?
Also, pissed off white people have sufficient leverage with Trump that he's fine with them committing arson on federal property.
111:
"Russians hacked the election" can be said to mean, and taken to mean anything from, "Botnets shitposting on twitter" to "Illegal campaign ads" to "Internal Democratic polling data stolen" to "Vote tallies altered".
Similar, "Trump is a Russian agent" might mean anything from "Trump has been taking directions from the KGB/FSB for thirty years" to "Trump and the KGB/FSB have an unspoken alliance of convenience."
Although, even the mildest version of "Trump is a Russian agent" is still plenty explosive enough. It seems obviously true at this point, but would have been inconceivable about any prior national politician.
"The lack of any coherent defense isn't a license for journalists to draw causation from mild correlation, and this article is absolutely dreadful on that count. "
Yes, pretty much, and I'm bemused that people think the answer is *more* conspiracy theories.
This also characterizes the Vote Leave stuff - some data that's definitely worth investigating, and then conspiratorial nonsense on twitter from the feature writer in charge.
chris s/cooter anon.
I think there's a clear distinction between "Here's a perfectly plausible but unproven chain of events that would explain the observed facts." and "Here's a fantastical story that there's no evidence for." The first, which is what I'd call the Chait story, is speculation, but I wouldn't call it a conspiracy theory in the pejorative sense. It's exactly the sort of thing the Russian government might do (build a long term relationship attempting to influence or control an influential man), it's exactly the sort of thing Trump might do (that is, he seems clearly willing to be in a weird enmeshed relationship with the Russian government now). So nothing about the Chait story is implausible in the slightest, it's just that the evidence for it is thin and circumstantial.
That seems like a perfectly valid thing to speculate about, so long as you don't lie about your degree of certainty. Laying out the possibilities makes it easier to understand new data that fits the pattern as it emerges.
On the other hand, something like Obama is a secret Muslim or Pizzagate is not just unproven but ridiculous. That's what I'd call conspiracy theories.
Honestly the "strong" version of the Chait story -- Trump as recruited sleeper agent since 1987 under KGB control through kompromat obtained in 1987 -- strikes me as pretty damn ridiculous. Maybe not Pizzagate ridiculous but maybe cocaine in Mena Airport/murder of Vince Foster ridiculous.
As I said above there's a weak version of the Chait story that's not only not ridiculous, but apparently true. But honestly my view is that this shit is too important for conspiracy theories or things that come close. The reality is that there is a President who, in some real sense, has a compromised relation with a foreign power that is mostly an enemy. That's a goddamn nightmare but the situation is serious enough that there's no time for "just asking questions" sensationalist bullshit. I fault Chait for not taking the issue seriously enough, as some people have said above.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, Hanssen, possibly worried that he could be exposed during the ensuing political upheaval, broke off communications with his handlers for a time.[27] The following year, after the Russian Federation took over the demised USSR's spy agencies, Hanssen made a risky approach to the GRU, with whom he had not been in contact in ten years. He went in person to the Russian embassy and physically approached a GRU officer in the parking garage. Hanssen, carrying a package of documents, identified himself by his Soviet code name, "Ramon Garcia," and described himself as a "disaffected FBI agent" who was offering his services as a spy. The Russian officer, who evidently did not recognize the code name, drove off. The Russians then filed an official protest with the State Department, believing Hanssen to be a triple agent.
Later
During the same time period, Hanssen would search the FBI's internal computer case record to see if he was under investigation. He was indiscreet enough to type his own name into FBI search engines. Finding nothing, Hanssen decided to resume his spy career after eight years without contact with the Russians. He established contact with the SVR (the successor to the Soviet-era KGB) in the fall of 1999. He continued to perform highly incriminating searches of FBI files for his own name and address.[33]
That to me doesn't sound like a smooth transistion of control, but whatever I'm a big liar blah blah blah.
Why don't any of these assholes ever get indicted on conspiracy charges? Anytime an Earth Firster! climbs a tree the FBI and the US Attorney are all over them with a million bullshit conspiracy charges. But we have documented evidence of a number of right-wing conspiracies, some of which have succeeded and some of which have failed, that easily meets the standards for a federal conspiracy prosecution. The stool pigeon is the coming race.
In the future, everyone will be Borg for one episode.
McDavid did nine fucking years for agreeing with a paid FBI plant that it would be a good idea to blow up a dam. That never got blown up. Meanwhile, Scott Pruitt's walking free when he was, by any reasonable standard, obviously and brazenly bribed to bestow political favors on corrupt corporations. If there was some analogous crime on the far left, there'd be 12 people looking at 60 years apiece.
122 Some people might say it's the purpose of the government to bestow special favours on corporations.
What about me?
And I certainly didn't read all 4 of those articles yesterday or I would of pointed out it doesn't seem like Trofimoff ever spied for Russia, and Pitts stopped in 92 which seems pretty close to "the collapse of the Soviet Union". Both of them were caught in sting operations where people pretended to be Russians who wanted to re-activate them.
But there's probably a single word you can complain about in this comment, so you can start throwing around insults again.
Don't forget the arsonists on whose behalf the large Bundy sons occupied more federal land, who have just been pardoned by 45. Even more than Arpaio, the message is pretty clear: hurt people on my behalf and I've got your back.
the message is pretty clear: hurt people on my behalf and I've got your back.
The nation's militias will find solace in that.
I suspect that the people Trump has pardoned would, if gathered in a room together, start fighting. One is likely to discover that it doesn't matter if Trump pardoned you, if you've written about nefarious liberal intolerance, if you've spent your life promoting Republican politics, all that matters is where you were born and fuck you if it wasn't in the US to US born parents.
"But there's probably a single word you can complain about in this comment, so you can start throwing around insults again."
Mate, if you don't want to be called a liar, the solution is in your hands.
LOL never stop being a hilarious chickenshit.
A story of anecdata, with the relevance left to anyone still with me at the end.
My better half did her PhD in a social science discipline with a dissertation that compared different approaches to social service provision in several Russian regions including Pskov, Ulyanovsk and Nizhni Novgorod. She got to know Boris Nemtsov when he was still mayor. We met when we both worked at a research institute in Munich. Her work there focused on German and EU policy toward the EU's eastern neighbors, including Russia. On a semi-regular basis, someone from the Russian consulate in Munich would make contact: invite her to lunch, ask for a meeting to discuss a recent conference at the institute, that sort of thing. She either demurred or included additional people or turned the tables by offering to make the discussion a round-table event at the institute.
Fast forward a few years, and she's the director of a German foundation's office in the South Caucasus, based in Tbilisi. We arrived two weeks ahead of the war.
One of the things that internationals in small capitals like to do is play "spot the spook." It's not too difficult when you live in what is effectively a village of several hundred people at most. We didn't have any contact with the Russian Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy (which is what the Russian embassy became after the war); in fact the Swiss, whom we knew fairly well, did not have full access to that section of their embassy. We did know who the head German spook was, who the US station chief was for a while, etc.
That gig came to an end in due course, and she was recruited to lead the Russian office of a famous British charity that is known for its second-hand shops and is currently under a cloud because of a sex scandal. (That scandal, btw, was known within the organization since at least 2012, which is when I heard of it.) She was the first head of that office to actually speak Russian, and to have a good idea of what's what in Russian civil society. For instance, that the husband of a particular economic institute's director was with the security services. (The British NGO had a contract in the tens of thousands range with the economic institute at the time.) Another thing about Russian civil society is that it's a safe bet that within any significant organization, there's at least one person who has a side hustle reporting to the security services.
A few months into her tenure in Moscow, one of the staff ginned up a really weird incident. The international office -- which had proved itself grossly incompetent on other fronts -- was not supportive. Combined with the general squeeze on civil society that accompanied Putin's return to the presidency, we decided that leaving Moscow was the best approach.
A few more months later, my better half was in Berlin's main train station and saw the person who had been the German spook in Tbilisi. In the course of their conversation, this person said to her, "As prominent as you were in Georgia, I am surprised you lasted as long as you did in Moscow."
Real spooks may be easy to spot, but they cover by fucking with your head.
There's no way that Trump wasn't probed early and often by Russian intelligence.
Given his actions that are a matter of public record, it's safe to assume that the Russian state has compromising information about him. That information is probably both sexual and financial.
The President of the United States is a massive security risk.
Allied governments and intelligence services have been aware of this since November 8, 2016. Our own intelligence services have had to assume since January 21, 2017 that their work leaks at the top. (In a different way than Karl Rove burning a senior CIA operative for partisan gain.)
It's probably a good thing I'm posting when the conversation has moved elsewhere.
132: Oh sure, and if you're not actively involved in that world it's mostly a harmless game. Our best friends there were teachers at the international school, with whom we felt free to speculate.
133.2. I remember, back in the dim past, reading what seemed at the time to be very detailed, well-referenced and damning articles about the Clintons. They had names, they had dates, they had quotes, they had references. Very serious-looking stuff. It all turned out to be nothing: fake or exaggerated or irrelevant or minor. (To be fair, the rabid right still believes in all of it, probably including Mena.)
Chait's article reminds me of those. Lots of scary-seeming smoke but no actual fire, just "there must be a fire here."
What compromising information do you think the Russians have that would go beyond the public record? Keep in mind that the Russians could fake up a pee tape if they felt like it, or insert fake financial transactions here and there. At least, that's what Trump's supporters would say happened, and since the Democrats seem to think the Russians are god-like with computers, they'd have trouble saying that couldn't happen.
The pee tape and such are the equivalent of Obama's Kenyan birth certificate: the magic thing that will get rid of the evil President and restore harmony to the universe. All without raising a sweat! No need to work for change, just say the magic spell.
135: Last first. I don't think anything but the ballot box is going to get rid of Trump. Things change, of course, but I don't think there's anything that persuades enough Republican Senators to vote for impeachment, even if the House returns articles. (Ok, I can imagine an electoral wipeout in which the Ds hold all of the Senate seats up for re-election this year and they go on to pick up NV, AZ, TN, TX and the MS special. That might get the Rs to consider evidence.)
"What compromising information do you think the Russians have that would go beyond the public record?"
Does the public record already have proof of bribery? Tax evasion? Those were good enough for Agnew. Does the public record already have proof of money laundering? Proof of violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? Obviously, there is considerable overlap among those possibilities.
Remember, the only thing in the Republican platform that the Trump people cared enough to expend effort on was watering down support for Ukraine as it fends off Russian invasion and annexation.
Sexually, I think what's most likely is something from the time when Trump was trying to get Russia to host the Miss Universe pageant, or during the production. It's one thing to know that the president has been having sex with women he pays money to fuck, but it would be another matter for a video of him in action to surface. I think he would do a lot to prevent that.
135.last I think your analogy suffers because one is real and the other was not.
I can't imagine the what the stories would have been if the Clinton's taxes were not public.
Obviously, the Project Arkansas ones could hardly be worse, but the media coverage on corruption would have been very much worse.
136.5 I don't think a tape of the president having sex with a prostitute would be enough, as I've speculated here before I think it's likely if they had such a thing it shows him having sex with a visibly underage girl, and one who probably looks a lot like Ivanka.
I mean as long as we're speculating, and it would be irresponsible not to.
Yeah, impeachment is such a high bar, it's not worth taking seriously at this point. People here bring it up, as everywhere, and I ask them what they think it would take for Steve Daines to vote to remove Trump. "Oh, that's not happening." Exactly.
That doesn't mean that the criminals Trump surrounds himself with shouldn't be prosecuted, and he shouldn't be shamed, repeatedly. Although the Russia etc thing isn't going to take him out, it has a definite impact on his ability to get bad shit done. (Oh he can get some bad shit done. Just not as much.)
I don't think anything but the ballot box is going to get rid of Trump
Yeah, agreed. AIMHMHB there are five ways that the Trump presidency could end:
1) His death; but he is a reasonably healthy if overweight and sedentary white man in his early seventies with exceptionally good personal healthcare, so this is unlikely to happen.
2) His resignation; but I regard this as very unlikely because I believe he would regard it as an admission of defeat.
3) His impeachment and conviction; this is also very unlikely. Few if any Republicans would vote for conviction. I am not even convinced that every Democrat would.
4) His removal for incapacity. See 1; very unlikely. He may not be intelligent or articulate, but he is (almost 2 years in) nowhere near medically incapable. It's possible that his medical condition might worsen sharply but not likely.
5) The end of his term in office.
You forgot
6) His abolition of the constitution and declaration of a monarchy.
(I jest. But total collapse of the constitutional order is clearly within the realm of possibility.)
I remember, back in the dim past, reading what seemed at the time to be very detailed, well-referenced and damning articles about the Clintons. They had names, they had dates, they had quotes, they had references.
This is not my recollection of Whitewater and the like at all (not addressing Lewinski and other accusations of sexual impropriety). The way I remember the 90s, all the accusations were either insane (Hillary killed Vince Foster); incomprehensible (Whitewater generally. There were all of these detailed stories that never got around to explaining how the fundamental wrongdoing the Clintons were being accused of worked); or incomprehensibly minor (say, Travelgate, where the accusation was that the Clintons had replaced people in a White House staff office, which is something that they were entitled to do, and what made it scandalous was inexplicable).
I'm not super attached to this Chait story as important journalism -- again, there doesn't seem to be anything new in it, it's just known facts assembled and with a plausible speculative story told to tie them together. But it seems infinitely more respectable than the Clinton stuff from the 90s: the speculation is a plausible, non-insane (in the context of Trump. It'd sound pretty nuts about any other politician) explanation for how Trump behaves.
"What compromising information do you think the Russians have that would go beyond the public record?"
On the other hand... for years before he got into politics, Trump was a very wealthy, very politically connected American with a high public profile and very close business ties (including a lot of transactions that smell like money laundering, such as cash-only property sales) to several Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, who visited Moscow several times. And he has personal habits that make him open to compromise - he sleeps around, and he tries to keep it a secret.
Why wouldn't FSB or SVR try to compromise him? He seems like an obvious target.
If nothing else, it would be good to know that he was reliable and wasn't about to turn on his Russian and Ukrainian business partners, many of whom would be friends of Putin.
I'm sure there are more valuable non-governmental US targets for SVR to want to blackmail; if they could pick anyone, they'd rather have their hooks in the head of Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, say, or the chief naval architect at GD Electric Boat. But for all I know those guys are perfectly respectable family men who do nothing worse than shout at their kids and let their labradors crap on their neighbours' lawns when the neighbours are away. Trump is in the sweet spot; there's no one who is at once as valuable and as easy to burn.
You forgot
6) His abolition of the constitution and declaration of a monarchy.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world,
Like a colossus, and we losers
Walk under his YUGE legs and peep about
To find ourselves very sick and low-quality graves. Sad!
The way I remember the 90s, all the accusations were either insane (Hillary killed Vince Foster); incomprehensible (Whitewater generally. There were all of these detailed stories that never got around to explaining how the fundamental wrongdoing the Clintons were being accused of worked); or incomprehensibly minor (say, Travelgate, where the accusation was that the Clintons had replaced people in a White House staff office, which is something that they were entitled to do, and what made it scandalous was inexplicable).
Yes. I can't remember reading a single Clinton story that struck me, at the time, as being credible in the sense that the Trump stuff is.
The only exception is the cattle futures trading business, which I think could plausibly have been a case of various people stretching the rules on posted margin and maybe also insider information to do a favour for the Governor's wife, coupled with Hillary Clinton being actually a very intelligent and unflappable person with a high tolerance for risk, i.e. all the characteristics that make a good trader, and also a fair bit of luck.
But, I mean, Jesus, that doesn't come anywhere near the top fifty shady things that Trump has done even if we limit it to things that we actually know about through court records. Almost his first act after being elected president was to pay $25 million in compensation to several hundred people he had defrauded of their savings.
Oh, right. Forgot the cattle futures, which I actually do believe was plausibly a bribe/favor (that is, I never saw a suggestion of what an actual quo would have been for the quid, but people do favors for politicians in the hope that they'll pay off somehow down the road). But that's one out of a giant flurry, and that's not something that looked plausible at the time and is embarrassing in retrospect, it's something that looked plausible at the time and still does.
Yeah, I don't like the Chait story, but I basically agree with 145. It seems to me the story's real sin is being deliberately ambiguous -- hinting that there's reason to think of Trump as a long term sleeper agent since 1987, when in fact all there's not very silly evidence of is that Trump was probably of interest to Russian intelligence (for which there's obviously tons of post-1991 continuity, hi Vladimir Putin) since the 1980s and enough financial connection to make some form of "compromise" pretty likely. Chait is playing up that ambiguity and having fun with it to sell a story, but guess what this isn't fun and games, so that's annoying. But, although Chait is kind of bullshitting about parts, there is some kind of real there there in a way that just wasn't true with the 1990s Clinton Whitewater/Mena airport type stories.
151: Good point. What DaveLMA's apparently saying is that, back in the 1990s, he read all the Whitewater/Vince Foster/Mena stuff and found it pretty persuasive, or even convincing - though he's since realised that it was all the fever dreams of a fog-smitten cabal of deranged syphilitic swamp badgers - and frankly that doesn't say much for his judgement.
So here's a thing I don't understand about Trump and the Russians. Supposedly Trump has a phone that's laughably unsecure and that everyone expects Russia, China, etc. have full access to. Do any journalism outfits also have access? If not, why not? Which allies are likely to have access? What's the likelihood of a recording of Trump and Putin's conversation being leaked by someone? Or is Putin able to convince Trump to ditch his cell phone even when no one else can?
There were lots of things about Bill that seemed fever-swampy at the time that now seem likely to be credible (e.g. I dismissed the accusations that were of rape at the time).
154: In that connection, this report apparently depends on leaks from people with access to NSA intercepts.
Wouldn't it violate journalist ethics to eavesdrop on Trump's calls (other than to demonstrate that it can be done)?
I recall a British scandal where Hugh Grant broke the story that journalists were illegally bugging celebrities. He had a pen with a recorder that he had some journalist brag into in some pub.
Anyway, I agree with 135.1 and 133. I'm very leery of what I will call "correlation news analysis" that relies on showing how things are possible or probable, but if you look at just the links with "causal" support, the case against Trump is very strong.
And the pee tape is real. I just know that in my heart.
154: Do any journalism outfits also have access? If not, why not?
Probably not. It's not the way journos typically do business. What's probable for a major outlet to have would be sources within agencies that might be inclined to say what they learned. But even then it would almost certainly be a controlled leak, i.e., an allied government (or at a stretch part of the US intel community) deciding for their own reasons to show how insecure Trump's communications are, and judging it was worth blowing that into unignorable open.
The folks at The Register, Wired, or BoingBoing might be the kind of people to figure it out for a technical lark and to show it could be done. Pwning the president's phone would be a legendary hack.
Which allies are likely to have access?
Who's really good at cyber? I don't really follow this closely at all, but at a guess I would say Brits, Germans, Estonians. Poles, maybe; French, maybe. Finns? Too many umlauts to say for süre.
What's the likelihood of a recording of Trump and Putin's conversation being leaked by someone?
Depends entirely on the contents of the conversation, if it's a state actor doing the leaking. If it's a tech publication doing it for the lulz, 100% if they succeed.
157: Don't know about Us law, but ethically nothing could more clearly be in the public interest.
Pwning the president's phone would be a legendary hack.
It would also get you arrested and extradited to the US for a trial on federal espionage charges. Whoever did it would have to be very confident of their anonymity, in a non-extradition country, or insane. I really doubt that a tech magazine would do it.
Whoever did it would have to be very confident of their anonymity, in a non-extradition country, or insane.
So 4chan and 2600 are what I hear you saying.
Which allies are likely to have access?
Israel.
153. I appreciate your "support," ajay.
Actually, some of the stuff was real: the cattle futures thing (obviously exactly what LB says in 151), for example. A lot of it was clearly bullshit: Hillary had Vince Foster killed, the Mena stuff. It took a while to work through them all and check off the ones that were real and the ones that were bullshit. My point is it actually took work to track down the facts behind all those allegations. There was no Google until late 1997; not even AltaVista until 1996, and search engine coverage was pretty poor until some time after that.
Remember the internet was in its infancy then. ISTR there was a usenet feed alt.politics.clinton (or something similar, maybe .whitewater?) that was where people fought it out. No 140 character limits, either.
I don't know if folks have been following Campos on the Broidy-Bechard payments. In Campos' words:
I've argued that a great deal of circumstantial evidence points to the affair being between Donald Trump and Bechard, and that Broidy entered into the NDA to silence Bechard as a favor to Trump.
I don't buy it. Among other things, if you are paying Bechard to cover something up, and she covers it up, you don't end the payments and accuse Bechard of not cooperating with the coverup.
Campos' explanation of this is really weak -- essentially, he's claiming that Broidy, for unspecified reasons, no longer wants to cover up for Trump. We'll see.
But should I be offended that Campos and Chait are examining this stuff? Somehow, faced with daily journalistic outrages that favor Trump, I can't manage to get worked up about guys like Chait and Campos.
A lot of it was clearly bullshit: Hillary had Vince Foster killed, the Mena stuff. It took a while to work through them all and check off the ones that were real and the ones that were bullshit.
Ah, fair enough. So which ones apart from the cattle futures thing looked credible at the time, with lots of believable sources and dates and so on, and then turned out later to be bullshit? My impression is that it was pretty much all obviously bullshit at the time. What am I not remembering?
170: As I recall, the Whitewater stuff was so convoluted it was hard to know what to think.
A reflexive distrust of "very detailed, well-referenced and damning articles" seems like the wrong takeaway after being overly credulous with right-wing sources.
Actually, some of the stuff was real: the cattle futures thing (obviously exactly what LB says in 151), for example.
As far as I can remember, that's literally one story from that period. I don't recall anything else that made any sense.
And I would disagree that it took work to figure that out. That is, everything except the cattle futures story that I remember fell pretty easily into the categories of "That's insane," "That's not a scandal" (meaning Travelgate), or "That does not make a comprehensible accusation of wrongdoing." I cannot think of another story where a reasonable person who wasn't powerfully prejudiced against the Clintons might have thought both "I understand this pretty well," and "I believe it's likely to be true."
Now, I'm being aggressive, but I don't think unfairly so. To be a little kinder to you and to anyone who was reading the NYT at the time, I could see a reasonable person believing that the Clintons were generally doing bad stuff on the basis of "where there's smoke there's fire" -- there wouldn't be all this coverage unless some of it made sense and was damning. But to make that mistake, you'd have to be assuming that even if the stories you understood and were paying attention to were bullshit, there was so much stuff that there must be something you didn't pay attention to that was really damning. Avoiding that mistake didn't mean doing a lot of work, it just meant not being willing to blindly substitute the NYT's judgment, that there were scandals worthy of all that coverage, for your own. (Which is a hostile way of saying it! That wouldn't be a crazy thing to do generally, the NYT is a pretty good paper! But it's not a laborious mistake to have avoided, it's just a matter of not being credulous.)
171: That's a large part of my point. If someone says something's a huge scandal, and after reading their best effort at explaining it you don't understand who did what wrong? Either you're a bad reader, or there isn't a scandal. Anyone who has faith in their ability to understand a news story shouldn't have believed in Whitewater-related wrongdoing on the basis of the contemporaneous coverage. It might have been reasonable to withhold judgment in case someone said something that made sense later, but affirmatively believing in wrongdoing on the basis of a story you didn't understand had to be a mistake.
(And I'm blaming the NYT for everything as the most credible news source that was pushing all the nonsense, but of course it was all over.)
Yes, I remember interminable 20-part pieces in the NYT about Whitewater with lots of rhetorical hints that something was bad but with it being basically totally incomprehensible. I also remember being deeply suspicious of the reporting but it was different when you couldn't turn on the internet and get an immediate concise 6 point breakdown on the things that were wrong with the story.
There was also change over time in the 90s as the bullshit stories grew and were consistently disproven. In 1993 it was more reasonable to think "huh, I don't know what this is but maybe there's something there" especially when the something was coming from the New York Times (I know, I know, but this was the past). By 1998 it was clear that everything was basically bullshit except Bill Clinton's horniness and that there was a manufactured-scandal industry.
174: I've forgotten all the NYT coverage that I mostly didn't read, but I do remember this SNL skit -- https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/cold-opening-whitewater-explained/n10559
Right. I'm not saying that anyone who thought there was something to Whitewater in the beginning was a fool -- where there's smoke there's fire, and the NYT is a respectable news organization are both reasonable rules of thumb to use.
But the Whitewater stories were still in a completely different category from the Trump-Russia stories, because they were incomprehensible fog at the time.
Chait is playing up that ambiguity and having fun with it to sell a story, but guess what this isn't fun and games, so that's annoying.
Treating it as fun and games at least keeps it in the news. There is value in that.
179 - agree. Plus, as Ajay said, even if everything alleged in Whitewater were true we already know for a fact that Trump has done far worse things than what the Clintons were even alleged to have done in Whitewater (the Trump fake charity, Trump University, etc etc etc etc) just from the public record, and even without any connection to Russia at all. It's just a mind-bogglingly different level of "scandal."
181. Sure, but the proposition on the table is "Trump is a Russian asset/agent/catspaw*/etc." That's a step beyond "Trump is a grifter" and "Trump is a playboy or worse," both of which have been shown to be true but are now "old news" to Trump supporters.
* Actually "catspaw" may be one that the Trumpiverse has already absorbed and discounted and doesn't care about.
AIMHMHB, I've been re-reading a lot of late Roman history lately (mostly Bury and Norwich) and it's essentially appalling. First (as someone once said) reading Suetonius and Procopius (The Secret History) is like reading the National Enquirer, and second, all the villains (and the Emperors and Empresses are mostly villains) are murderous kleptocrats. The good ones all seem to get typhoid or dropsy or get murdered. As for sex, we all know what Procopius said Theodora said. It does put one in certain frame of mind.
Sure, but the proposition on the table is "Trump is a Russian asset/agent/catspaw*/etc."
The way I phrased it was:
It's pretty clear that Russia has kompromat on Trump, given his financial dealings.
Does that really seem implausible to you?
182 - well, sort of. I find "Russian Sleeper Agent" implausible, but 183 is extremely plausible and in a broad sense we know it already to be true (just because of Manafort). The annoying thing about Chait is that he's reveling in ambiguity about what it might mean to be an "asset" of Russian intelligence.
A reflexive distrust of "very detailed, well-referenced and damning articles" seems like the wrong takeaway after being overly credulous with right-wing sources.
This is where I'm at. I truly have no grasp on what's wrong with this article.
185 - The implication that Trump's entry into "public life" was driven from the start/dictated by Russian intelligence through today, based on a 1987 visit by Trump to Russia and opinion-advertisement, strikes me as crazed conspiracy mongering by (partial) chronology, and like many such efforts it depends mostly on wishful thinking and straining to put a lot of weight on a tiny speck of evidence. The Trump-Russia thing in reality is too important for that kind of bs.
Don't take Procopius on Theodora too seriously: she was on the other side in the religious faction fight and he was anxious to smear her chiefly on account of that. The word "anecdote", which in Greek simply means "unpublished" and was the name given to the "Secret History", has taken on its modern meaning for a reason, and much of that reason is Procopius.
It may not have been quite so one-dimensionally causal. But I certainly think the most parsimonious explanation is that Trump met with Russians on his 1987 trip who had a vested interest in manipulating him.
Do I think there was a continuous, 30 year marionette thing going planned at the outset? No. I think Trump has been available for a series of opportunistic Russians for the past 30 years, though.
You know who else went to the Soviet Union in 1987? Me.
||
So I just stumbled on a pretty clear-cut case of academic plagiarism. With light searching it seems the author was a postgrad at the time (2002) and hasn't published anything since, so I'm guessing dropped out or got busted. Is there a list somewhere of assholes who got busted? Should I bother?
(It's security studies stuff so not important in any real way.)
|>
I mean I was only there for two days but.
but in that time you were compromised and recruited, hence your long-term promotion of a glamorous autocratic ideology with a distinctly Russian flavor.
Weren't you only like 10 then?
Too young to pee on a hooker in order to defile the ghost of Obama's bed, for sure.
The Russians get them young. There's like a TV show and everything.
I was 12, but they promised to make me puppet-emperor of a Central Asian dependency if I did a few things for them, and the rest is history.
They offered you a place in the sun?
Back before helicopter parents, kids were allowed to hire hookers for water play at pre-teen ages.
I visited the Soviet Union in 1981. I offered my services, but they weren't interested.
"It's his lawn mowing money and there's no risk of AIDS."
||
Many young men from Waffen SS formations of different national origin joined the Legion Etrangere and ended up in Dien Bien Phu and later in Algeria.|>
Clearly some people are just bad luck.
George HW Bush didn't consider it beneath his dignity to accuse Bill Clinton of nefarious behavior in Moscow. And let us not forget the whole ridiculous Russia uranium thing.
"Many young men from Waffen SS formations of different national origin joined the Legion Etrangere and ended up in Dien Bien Phu and later in Algeria."
For what it's worth Martin Windrow reckons this is a bit of a romantic myth. He points out that DBP was in 1954 and a tour in the Legion lasted five years; while there were no doubt a lot of Nazi exiles in the Legion in the early days of Indochina they would all have mustered out by DBP, let alone Algeria.
190: I was there for a week in 1991. Shortly thereafter the USSR collapsed. The official position of both the UK and Russian governments is that my actions during this period played no role in the downfall of Soviet Communism. Best we leave it at that, I think.
206: The Last Valley? Good?
208: excellent. As is "Our Friends Beneath The Sand".
Anyhow I kind of love the FFL for the aesthetics but they were chock full o' Nazis through the 60s and let's not forget that they STILL sing "Je ne regrette rien" as an official legion song in reference to their completely non-regretted role in a right-wing military putsch in goddamn 1960 against noted Stalinist Charles DeGaulle.
175: And I'm blaming the NYT for everything as the most credible news source that was pushing all the nonsense, but of course it was all over.
But not a bad choice to blame given the Jeff Gerth canon. Both the original grossly misleading story, and maybe even more so this gem: "Documents Show Clintons Got Vast Benefit From Their Partner in Whitewater Deal." It is preliminary coverage of the Pillsbury Report which in the end showed no such thing, and in fact for all intents and purposes vindicated the Clintons of everything but extremely poor choice in associates (sadly a recurring theme in their careers, I think the most damning thing against them).
The even more ridiculous thing is that when the final Pillsbury report did come out a few months later (basically exonerating the Clintons) they did *not* do a story on it (although it was a key event in an otherwise massively over-covered "scandal"). So today if someone wants to search the archives of the paper of record for the reporting on that important development in Whitewater they get the Gerth bullshit. And even more egregious to this day if someone (like Bill Clinton did) points out that the Times did *not* cover the report people (including asshat Howell Raines) point to the fact that they did a 2,000 word *story* on it.
(And I have't even mentioned the ongoing lunacy of what's-his-ass? .. Safire... totally erroneous stuff leaked by the likes of Federalist Society subcunt Kavanaugh.)
This is probably a horrible question, but to what extent did they have poor choice in associates, and to what extent were they just from Arkansas? I guess the latter doesn't explain Mark Penn or Anthony Weiner.
187. Procopius wrote a lot of glowing stuff about the Emperor and Empress, though he was also always a total fanboy of Belisarius (not something that would necessarily endear him to Justinian, btw). In any case Bury thinks he wrote "The Secret History" as revenge for not getting a grant/promotion/extra vacation time/whatever. He put it away; it certainly wasn't published in his lifetime. Bury thinks that later on Justinian was nice to him again and he wrote a glowing survey of all Justinian's architecture projects.
Bury and Norwich both believe there was more than a grain of truth in what Procopius wrote about Theodora's past, although Bury thinks she totally reformed when she met Justinian. Opinions differ.
I haven't heard the religious disagreement thing before, though God knows everyone in Byzantium seems to have been at odds (to the point of murder) with everyone else on religious matters, mostly ones utterly unresolvable, of course. Justinian and Theodora were both closet Monophysites, IIRC, rather than Orthodox.
Theodora wasn't all that closetted about her Monophysitism, and P. thought Justinian was a closet one too. But he was paid to write glowing stuff and glowing stuff he wrote. It's been a while since I read Bury- he's been dead nearly a hundred years- but I've got a copy somewhere. I'll see if he can remotely convince me on that.
I conclude chris y kills authors after reading them. And is a vampire.
That's a completely unfair accusation. I'm sure that after they die chris just eats bits of the corpse.
215. Procopius has been dead for over 1400 years and is still relevant. I'm not sure if he died from vampirism, though.
The hardest thing about reading Bury is he almost never translates quotes from the original Greek or Latin. Anyway, the part where Bury addresses Theodora's past (I think it was in a footnote) seemed a lot like special pleading to me, though he was no fan. Norwich goes straight for the salacious bits and seems to believe them. Wikipedia seems to think all the slanderous stuff was "standard invective" and not meant literally. That gets a side-eye. ("They were demons whose heads used to float around the palace." -- Standard Invective #105. Uh-huh.) Perhaps there are undead Wikipedia editors protecting J. and T.'s reputations even today.
It's hard to say whether Justinian's sponsorship of Procopius was spontaneous or solicited. Probably the latter, like getting an NSF or DARPA grant. The architecture book has an introduction which contains over-the-top praise of J. and T., but then, authors (even today!) often put those in their books in the hope that the target of the praise would be grateful and generous in response.
At a certain point the agent/asset question is about as meaningful as the liar/bullshitter question.
154: Do any journalism outfits also have access? If not, why not?
It's the other way around. I put my phone into airport mode within two blocks of the White House, which I walk by every day, and I know other reporters who do also.
I was in middle/high school during most of the Clinton years, and the Lewinsky story was the first for which I was able to really delve into and evaluate all the news for myself, and say confidently at the "This is BULLSHIT!". There, of course, the NYT (my main source) was giving me plenty of cues via the better op-ed writers on how to interpret the more "evenhanded" stories. For all the stuff leading up like Whitewater, I remember having a vague sense that if it was being written up so extensively it might really be something minorly crooked.
I put my phone into airport mode within two blocks of the White House, which I walk by every day, and I know other reporters who do also.
This is just about the most insanely wrong-headed cybersecurity measure I can think of, except possibly never typing in capitals because it's like shouting and it'll be easier for eavesdroppers to read.
THE WHOLE POINT ABOUT A PHONE IS THAT YOU CAN REACH IT WHEREVER IT IS.
I mean, what is the threat here? That there is someone physically located inside the White House who is trying to hack into your phone, but he is trying to do so not using your mobile data connection (which obviously could be done from anywhere), but using some other communications means that has a range of two blocks? Like, what, shouting really loud in binary and hoping your phone's mike picks it up?
223: I'm not a reporter, but he's probably thinking about things like this. I'm not sure how reasonable it is to worry about around the White House specifically, but people in a local forum have wondered about cell phone problems in other specific places.
So, there's someone actually physically in the White House who wants to track when reporters are in a radius of about two blocks from the White House, and for some reason it is terribly important to journalists that they should not be able to find out, and also this person whoever it is does not have any link to the US government which can get hold of cellphone location data whenever it wants as long as it can get a FISA warrant, so he is having to rely on using a single meaconing site which he's put on the White House roof or something.
The events of the past two years have certainly put Procopius in a new light, as they're going to sound so implausible as to be likely metaphorical to future historians. ("And he announced to the nation he wanted to have sex with his own daughter...")
Do you want me to answer, ajay, or do you just want to be an asshole about it? Our concern is that Trump's security protocols are so lax that foreign intelligence services appear to be using IMSI (or StingRay) devices to intercept transmissions near the White House. Lots of journalists turn off their phone in the vicinity of the Russian Embassy. Call it superstitious if you want, I don't care.
I don't plan to read the Chait article, but one reason to be being cautious about this Russia stuff is present in this very thread. No one has dismissed the issue but we still have people really upset. Not great for intra-left discourse. If enough people lose their bearings over this it could turn pretty corrosive, rather than just annoying (not saying anyone here have necessarily lost their bearings, but they're certainly out there.