Russia's Weapons In the Form of Words

Update 9/9/24: Thanks again to the Crooks & Liars crew especially Steve in Manhattan for promoting this article at Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please remember to GET THE VOTE OUT America and stop Republican/Russia sabotage of our elections! Also, please consider my book Notice a Trend as a stocking stuffer this coming Halloween uh Turkey Sacrifice Day hold on, Saturnalia!

 I am an arms dealer fitting you with
Weapons in the form of words
And don't really care which side wins
As long as the room keeps singing
That's just the business I'm in
-- "This Ain't a Scene," Fall Out Boy

The Department of Justice this week dropped a bombshell in the form of indictments and sanctions towards Russian operatives who were paying off Far Right media outlets and "influencers" to undermine our nation's elections and policies (via Shannon Bond, Jude Joffe-Block, and Caitlin Thompson at NPR):

On Wednesday, the Justice Department charged two employees of RT, the Russian state media broadcaster, in a scheme to secretly fund and direct the production of social media videos that racked up millions of views.

The RT staffers, named in the indictment as Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They’re accused of funneling nearly $10 million to an unnamed Tennessee company that contracted with online influencers with big audiences...

“The company never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Wednesday.

Still, didn't anybody on the RT payroll suspect they were all working from the same script, all so favorable to Putin and to Russia? Or are these Far Right "influencers" so twisted by their own world-view - that Ukraine is the enemy, that liberals are Commies, that there's a global conspiracy to destroy Alpha Males - that they didn't care how much like puppets they are?

The charges against Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva come as U.S. intelligence officials say foreign efforts aimed at swaying the outcome of the election are escalating. On Wednesday, the government seized 32 internet domains connected to a separate Russian influence operation, while Iran has recently been accused of trying to hack both the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns.

What sets the RT operation apart from many other interference efforts is that it appeared to reach a real audience, thanks to the recognizable names attached.

“Buying authentic influencers is a far better use of funds than creating fake personas, because they bring their own trusting audiences and are actually, you know, real,” wrote Renée DiResta, the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, about how online influencers spread propaganda and rumors, in a post on Threads...

The thing every American - especially the ones getting hammered repeatedly by these propagandists - knew that what was coming from these influencers wasn't home-grown but a coordinated effort by a deep pocket source: They tended to repeat the same messages and stick to the same talking points. Now there's proof in a courtroom that the Far Right Noise Machine was getting paid to attack the rest of us. That the money was coming from Russia is what stings.

The money itself is obscene. One person getting $400,000 A MONTH to spew the pre-scripted content? About 90 percent of most Americans don't see that much income in a YEAR. The greed of these pro-Russian influencers barely equals the severity of their anti-American output.

A good number of social media commentators - most of them doing it for free by the by - pointed out how these Far Right influencers have been screaming for decades about "leftist bloggers and pundits getting paid by George Soros" so the irony is not lost. It may not be irony actually: It's certainly deflection and confession on their parts. 

What the mainstream media - affected by the revelation that there is this kind of corruption in their own circles - need to realize, what a majority of Americans need to understand is how all of this is Putin's psychological (psyops) war on the United States.

This may not be a real-world warzone like Ukraine with tanks guns and bloodshed, but our airwaves and information sources are battlegrounds now. Putin can't afford a direct war on America - Gods help us, it would end in nuclear fire if that happens - but he's bitter and enraged at how our government has imposed economic sanctions not only on Russia but on himself ever since the Magnitsky Incident in 2009 led to congressional legislation that targeted Putin and his corrupt regime.

You can see the uptick in Far Right rhetoric around that time as the Tea Party stirred anti-Obama resentment into anti-government outrage. It helped Putin that many of the Far Right are synced to his own political and social world-views - nationalist, extremist, evangelical/orthodox Christianist, expressing open contempt and horror towards women, ethnics, gay/lesbian/trans people - to where these so-called "patriotic Americans" would happily - for a high fee - turn against their fellow Americans to side with a foreign despot.

There used to be anger and outrage from the Far Right Republicans back at the height of the Cold War if ANYone was caught working on the Soviet Russia payroll. Today, you have to think that everyone from Fox-Not News to Newsmax on down to InfoWars (what's left of it) have their hands out for the Russian oligarchs to tickle their palms for another $400k each (I would like to think National Review have higher personal standards than to sell out like that, but even now I have doubts).

If we were at actual war, what these Far Right media elites are doing would be considered treason.

Thing is, we are at war: Engaged by an enemy nation in Russia that is overwhelming our media with disinfo, conspiracy tripe, brazen lies - what we'd call "flooding the zone with shit" - to where almost half our fellow citizens can't tell what's real or fake news anymore. All thanks to Russia's front-line Fifth Columnists spewing all that shit at us from Facebook to Twitter to podcasts to facetime on the prime time talk shows.

Half the reason the United States is on the brink of civil war is because Putin is paying those wingnut bullshitters to confuse and defame Americans, to make us fear and hate each other at the expense of our own common cause to support and defend this nation.

Goddamn them. Every single one of these greedheads betrayed America for Putin's cash. Send them to prison first, and let Hell take them when they die.

When the Con Artist Sells Our Nation To the Other End of the Phone Call

Thursday was a deadline for drama, and oh dear God did it deliver...

If you'll recall last weekend, a whistleblower got word to Congress that trump's White House was sitting on "urgent" and credible national security matters. The acting Director of National Intelligence Maguire was required by law to pass information to Adam Schiff's committee by Tuesday (he did not) and was required to give testimony in closed session today (it ended up being the agency's Inspector General who alerted Schiff in the first place).

Whatever that testimony was, the reports and scuttlebutt around it are deeply serious. If we can refer to Emptywheel's coverage on this:

The Washington Post reported more details Wednesday evening about the whistleblower complaint:

Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress, former officials say...

One bit stood out for me in the lede:

The whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter...

With some updating for today:

Important to note that the IC IG is a Trump appointee — Michael Atkinson. He’s responsible for the determination that the unidentified whistleblower’s complaint was credible and an “urgent concern.”

ADNI broke the law as Amee Vanderpool noted here because the complaint was deemed credible:

50 USC § 3033(k)(5)(C): the DNI is required to transmit details on “urgent complaints” to congressional intel committees w/in 7 days-only exemption is if the complaint isn’t “credible.”

If Schiff’s claims that the complaint is credible are correct, the acting DNI broke the law. pic.twitter.com/xgmgEr7ZzK

Earlier speculation was that the whistleblower sent up flares over a phone call trump made to Putin back in late July. The current thinking is that the call instead involves Ukraine, where trump's lackeys - especially Rudy Giuliani - were openly pressuring that nation's government into starting their own investigations into Joe Biden's son (who did business in that country). Back to Emptywheel:

It was Trump about Ukraine with a phone call to Zelensky, according to the latest report by WaPo...

Explains why the suggestions the matter was part of an ongoing investigation; the House was already investigating whether Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani were trying to persuade President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to help dig up dirt on Joe Biden to help Trump’s 2020 campaign.

Now we need to know if the $250M aid to Ukraine was dependent on this matter, as well as a meeting later this month between Trump and Zelensky — and if Vladimir Putin had been involved in this exchange in any way.

As I type this, Rudy was on CNN getting questions about his fishing expeditions and possible attempts at (more) collusion between trump and a foreign power. He wasn't doing so well responding, probably because he may realize that one way or another he was caught breaking laws that even trump and AG Barr can't cover up.

All we know for certain is that there's a whistleblower in the intelligence community who couldn't keep quiet about trump "promising" someone a deal that violated our nation's security.

All we know for certain is that trump was willing - eager - to sell out the presidency, sell out the United States, to a foreign nation. By all rights, this is fucking treason.

What the hell is going to stop this con artist in the Oval Office from dealing away our nation's integrity and sovereignty one phone call at a time?

Darkest Timeline Day 722: Betrayals Confirmed

Jesus. (from the New York Times)

In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said...

JESUS. (The link is to Daily Beast because WaPo is behind a paywall)

President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, The Washington Post reports. The president's efforts include reportedly taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials. The unusual behavior part of a broader pattern by the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny, and even preventing high-ranking administration officials from fully knowing what he has told Putin—one of the United States’ main adversaries. As a result, U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years...

THESE ARE NOT THE ACTS OF A MAN WHO IS SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Let me refer to Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice:

Vladimir Putin, despite being not the greatest strategic thinker in history, has a very specific set of goals. Some are US specific. Some are EU and NATO specific. Some are regional. And some are global. As we’ve covered here over and over since the late spring of 2016 is that Putin wants to roll back US power by weakening the US and by demonstrating that the liberal democracy and attendant values that the US promotes globally is no better, and may in fact be worse, than the managed democracy he’s created in Russia around his authoritarian rule.

In regards to the US, Putin specifically wants to enflame political, social, religious, and ethnic grievances, which is why his cyber enabled information warfare targeted very specific groups over very specific issues. Often playing groups on both sides of an issue off against each other. He also wants to rollback US power projection. Specifically he wants the US military and defense posture to stop being expeditionary. Regionally in Europe he wants NATO weakened so he can reestablish the historic near abroad and sphere of influence that he believes are Russia’s due, including his claims on Crimea and Ukraine...

...(trump's) positions during the campaign and the actions he’s taken, in regards to domestic, foreign, national security, and economic affairs, have given Putin almost everything he wanted. The only thing he hasn’t gotten yet is the lifting of sanctions, but there have been efforts within the administration to chip away at and/or redefine them in the favor of Putin and the oligarchs he protects.

And this brings us back to the question: what, if anything, would the President be doing differently if we knew for certain that he was a Russian asset or agent?

And the answer I keep coming back to, every time I ask it of myself or discuss it with those who I’ve been collaborating with on tracking the Russian active measures and cyberwarfare campaign through open sources, is nothing. There is nothing the President would be doing differently. And that conclusion is one of the most disturbing I’ve ever come to in my professional career...

This is all I can see from here: trump is actively ignoring every American security protocol; trump is actively giving Russia intel and support, and has been trying to do more outside of established communications/channels; trump is committing acts of chaos and mismanagement on both the global and domestic stages that allow Putin and Russia to profit at our expense.

If any other American was doing this, we'd have arrested his/her ass on charges of espionage within 12.7 seconds. If we were at WAR with Russia, the charges would be treason.

And who's to say we are NOT at war with Russia right now? Just because our government hasn't officially declared it doesn't mean we aren't at war. Every action Russia has taken in the last 5-10 years - the computer hacks into our political and social systems, the subversion of our electoral process, the manipulation of Americans into breaking treaties and ending activities so that Russia can profit from our absences - have been acts of war against us.

Jesus. We need to start fighting back.

We need to arrest every fucking traitor working for Putin.

Starting with the Head Shitgibbon.

Unavoidable Conclusions To an Ongoing Train Wreck

Welcome to the Darkest Timeline (via Ken White at The Atlantic).

Federal prosecutors filed three briefs late on Friday portending grave danger for three men: the former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, the former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, and President Donald Trump...

In brief No. 1, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office argues that Paul Manafort breached his cooperation agreement with the government by lying to the FBI and the Special Counsel’s Office in the course of 12 meetings. The brief oozes a level of confidence notable even among professionally hubristic prosecutors: Mueller says he’s ready to present witnesses and documents, and that he gave Manafort’s lawyers an opportunity to refute the evidence but they could not. Mueller is sure he has the receipts.

According to the brief, Manafort lied about his communications with the reputed Russian intelligence agent Konstantin Kilimnik, whom Mueller has scrutinized as a possible conduit between the Trump campaign and the Russian government... Mueller also asserts that Manafort lied about some of the payments he received and about an investigation in another district—possibly, based on the context, the Southern District of New York investigation of Michael Cohen and the president. Finally, and of great concern to the White House, Mueller claims that Manafort lied about his contacts with the Trump administration before his guilty plea, and that text messages, documents, and witnesses prove that he was in contact with administration officials...

In brief No. 2, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York asks a federal judge to sentence the former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to a “substantial term of imprisonment”—meaning between three and four years...

The New York prosecutors blast Cohen’s “rose-colored view of the seriousness of his crimes,” accusing him of a “pattern of deception that permeated his professional life.” Prosecutors portray Cohen as stubbornly obstructing his own accountant to cheat at taxes, even refusing to pay for accounting work that raised inconvenient issues he wanted suppressed...  Cohen, they say, schemed to pay for two women’s stories (Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, we now know) in violation of campaign-finance laws in order to influence the 2016 election, and did so “in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1”—that is, the President of the United States...

And that brings us to brief No. 3: Special Counsel Mueller’s separate sentencing brief in Cohen’s lying-to-Congress case. He does not recommend a sentence but informs the court about the nature of Cohen’s assistance to his office. Mueller discloses that Cohen has “taken significant steps to mitigate his criminal conduct” by pleading guilty to lying to Congress and meeting with the special counsel seven times to discuss his own conduct and other “core topics under investigation.” That includes information about multiple cases of contact between other Trump-campaign officials and the Russian government, and about Cohen’s contact with the White House in 2017 and 2018, suggesting an ongoing inquiry into obstruction of justice...

Just to note, the Obstruction of Justice relates to trump firing James Comey for refusing to stop the investigation on Michael Flynn, a retired general and major trump campaign player who was in deep with Russians already and was tagged as a serious security risk.

Everywhere in this mess of trump scandal, there are Russians. Russian business partners. Russian contacts. Russian handlers and GRU agents. At some point we're going to find red trump hats reading Druzhishche (buddy).

How serious a breach of national integrity is this?

I normally don't quote from Wired magazine, and you wouldn't normally think it would have any political insight to give. But Wired is tied into network security issues - which is where all the Russian hacking/subversion of our national security comes into play - so they would have a reason to comment. Or at least Garrett Graff would:

WE ARE DEEP into the worst case scenarios. But as new sentencing memos for Trump associates Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen make all too clear, the only remaining question is how bad does the actual worst case scenario get...?

A year ago, Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic outlined seven possible scenarios about Trump and Russia, arranged from most innocent to most guilty. Fifth on that list was “Russian Intelligence Actively Penetrated the Trump Campaign—And Trump Knew or Should Have Known,” escalating from there to #6 “Kompromat,” and topping out at the once unimaginable #7, “The President of the United States is a Russian Agent.”

After the latest disclosures, we’re steadily into Scenario #5, and can easily imagine #6...

In fact, what’s remarkable about the once-unthinkable conclusions emerging from the special counsel’s investigation thus far is how, well, normal Russia’s intelligence operation appears to have been as it targeted Trump’s campaign and the 2016 presidential election. What intelligence professionals would call the assessment and recruitment phases seems to have unfolded with almost textbook precision, with few stumbling blocks and plenty of encouragement from the Trump side.

Mueller’s court filings, when coupled with other investigative reporting, paint a picture of how the Russian government, through various trusted-but-deniable intermediaries, conducted a series of “approaches” over the course of the spring of 2016 to determine, as Wittes says, whether “this is a guy you can do business with.”

The answer, from everyone in Trumpland—from Michael Cohen in January 2016, from George Papadopoulos in spring 2016, from Donald Trump, Jr. in June 2016, from Michael Flynn in December 2016—appears to have been an unequivocal “yes.”

Mueller and various reporting have shown that the lieutenants in Trump’s orbit rebuffed precisely zero of the known Russian overtures. In fact, quite the opposite. Each approach was met with enthusiasm, and a request for more.

Given every opportunity, most Trump associates—from Paul Manafort to Donald Trump, Jr. to George Papadopoulos—not only allegedly took every offered meeting, and returned every email or phone call, but appeared to take overt action to encourage further contact. Not once did any of them inform the FBI of the contacts...

What we are uncovering - something I'd long noted and what Graff is highlighting now - is not only a Presidential campaign willing to break election laws but also willing to betray our nation to a foreign power, driven entirely by a lust for everything that foreign power offered them.

I admit to personal bias. I wholeheartedly believe with only the partial evidence shown of Worst Case Scenario #7: trump AS A RUSSIAN AGENT. Straight up treason.

But here's the upsetting thing. Scenario #7 isn't the breaking point. Scenario #5 - where Russians actively infiltrated a Presidential campaign and trump knew/should have known - is just as bad as #7. This is the level where any honest citizen would have stopped and said "No". This is the point where a legal campaign would have drawn a line. ANY foreign intervention into our internal decision-making - our elections - would be tantamount to betraying every American living or dead who stood for our own nation's sovereign status.

trump and his Inner Circle crossed that line. They never said "No," they said "Yes" and repeatedly. They did it with eyes open and arms wide. Violating national security protocols we have in place to prevent foreign meddling, to stop foreign espionage and spying. They propped the door and let every crook in, because they are crooks themselves.

We're openly seeing evidence of Scenario #5 for trump's campaign, and every bit of it points to acts of treason.

And Cohen's revelations point to Russia being involved since the damned PRIMARIES, when trump was kneecapping Republican candidates from Jeb to Rubio to Kasich to Cruz to every other wanna-be who were left whimpering on the sidelines wondering how the hell they were beat. How does it feel, Republicans? HOW DOES IT FEEL TO KNOW YOUR OWN PRIMARY WAS COMPROMISED BY PUTIN?

To quote my boss Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice:

But here’s what matters: If Trump isn’t brought to justice, the United States of America will cease to exist as a sovereign nation. It’s frightening to face that fact, but face it we must because a criminal gang has seized the executive branch. We and our fellow citizens will either root them out, or we’ll pretend accept that this is just how things are now.

Welcome to the Darkest Timeline. Welcome to the Second Civil War, between us and Putin's Puppets.

Get to work saving the United States. STOP trump NOW. STOP THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FROM STEALING THE REST OF US. 'Cause right now, it's not really trump or the Republicans profiting from this crime. It's Putin. And the United States is going to suffer if he wins outright.

July 27 2016 A Date Which Will Live In Infamy...

trump publicly called on Russia to "find Hillary's missing emails," which in Far Right Wingnut Conspiracy-Speak meant "Hey, hack her server to find embarrassing shit."

A Daily Beast article from that day:

During a Wednesday press conference in Florida, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s “missing” emails from her tenure as secretary of state. “Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens. That will be next. Yes, sir.”

Betty Cracker commentary from Balloon Juice:

As Adam noted yesterday, the DNC hack isn’t just standard intel gathering that virtually all governments do. The decision to use WikiLeaks as an outlet to publicly release the information to interfere with an election “meets the definition of an act of cyberwar,” according to Dave Aitel, whose Ars Technica editorial was quoted in Adam’s post...

So to recap, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump openly “adhered” to a hostile foreign government and encouraged it to commit an act of war on the United States...

A more detailed review from Aaron Blake from the Washington Post:

There are many, many potential problems with this scenario — and not just for Clinton's campaign, but also for U.S. national security. Indeed, the logical extension of his comments is that a foreign power would be deciding how to handle possibly sensitive information about a potential U.S. president...

But Wednesday's comments ratchet things up even more. Even as he contended that he's not the preferred candidate of Russia — as Democrats have alleged and Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested — he's now hoping Russia has potentially damaging information about a possible U.S. president.

That's stunning. And while Trump did not say he wants Russia to use those emails for blackmail or espionage purposes, his previous comments make clear it's a possibility he's very well aware of...

My take back in the day:

It doesn't matter that Clinton's email server has already undergone a complete federal investigation, where the worst the FBI found was that it was improper that Clinton was doing this (following how previous Sec of States did their private servers!).

Trump is taking the Far Right Narrative that Evil Clinton is still hiding something, anything, and they want to get at it by hook or by crook. Preferably by crook.

This is insane. This would be like having Richard Nixon asking Red China to wiretap Muskie (didn't have to, he hired his own). This would be like having Teddy Roosevelt asking Canada to intercept telegrams sent by Alton B. Parker back in 1904. This would be like John Adams asking the kingdom of Norway to raid Thomas Jefferson's home for his personal papers...

And for all those takes, what really did happen because of what trump said to the world that day? Refer to David A. Graham at the Atlantic just this July 13 2018...

The broad outlines of Friday’s indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, charging 12 Russians with conspiracy, identity theft, and money laundering in connection with hacking during the 2016 presidential election, are not surprising. The hacking of the Democratic National Committee has been public knowledge since July 2016, and even then, the authorities publicly stated that the perpetrators were Russian government officials. Other details, such as the apparent involvement of WikiLeaks and Trump adviser Roger Stone, were also known. Some of the details, however, are striking...

On July 27, 2016, at a Trump press conference in Florida, the candidate referred to 33,000 emails that an aide to Hillary Clinton had deleted from the former secretary of state’s personal email server. The DNC had recently announced the Russian intrusion, and Trump speculated that if Russia broke into the DNC, it would have accessed Clinton’s emails, too...

(trump) was encouraging a foreign adversary to illegally hack into messages by a former secretary of state that might contain sensitive information, then release them publicly.

Trump had good reason to believe that Russia was listening. The previous month, his son, Donald Jr.; son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, had a meeting at Trump Tower with Russians who they believed were offering damaging information about Clinton. (The meeting wasn’t revealed to the public until 2017, and both the Russians and the Trump campaign officials say no dirt was exchanged.) Prior to the meeting, Trump Jr. had received an email stating that the meeting was “ part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Mueller’s indictment offers new evidence that Russia was listening—and acting on Trump’s request. The indictment charges 12 officers of the GRU, Russia’s military-intelligence agency, with hacking intended to interfere with the election...

This is asking a foreign power to spy on an American citizen, to spy on an American who worked as a Senator and Secretary of State, to spy on an American running for the Presidency.

How can that NOT fit the definition of treason spelled out in the US Code? "Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States..."

On this day in 2016, donald trump went on live television and committed an act of treason asking Russia to interfere with the elections, putting into play another part of what is turning out to be the Crime of the Century: Theft of the electoral process of the United States.

Everyone saw the crime taking place, and for now the thieves are getting away with it.

Do not forget this day.

No Other Word But Treason Describes This

Just to refer to a few other people first.

John Cole at Balloon Juice:

...If Barack Obama had stood next to Putin and trashed the Republicans and John McCain after beating him in the previous election the Right-Wing would be calling for firing squads. He didn’t do that, but they called for firing squads anyway.

These people are fucking monsters. Trump, Pence, the whole god damned party have got to go.

James Fallows at The Atlantic:

I am old enough to remember Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon telling lies on TV, about Vietnam in both cases, and Watergate for Nixon. I remember the travails and deceptions of Bill Clinton, and of George W. Bush in the buildup to the disastrous Iraq War.

But never before have I seen an American president consistently, repeatedly, publicly, and shockingly advance the interests of another country over those of his own government and people...

For 18 months, members of this party have averted their eyes from Trump, rather than disturb the Trump elements among their constituency or disrupt the party’s agenda on tax cuts and the Supreme Court. They already bear responsibility for what Trump has done to his office.

But with every hour that elapses after this shocking performance in Helsinki without Republicans doing anything, the more deeply they are stained by this dark moment in American leadership...

David Frum at The Atlantic:

Russia helped Donald Trump into the presidency, as Robert Mueller’s indictment vividly details. Putin, in his own voice, has confirmed that he wanted Trump elected. Standing alongside his benefactor, Trump denounced the special counsel investigating the Russian intervention in the U.S. election—and even repudiated his own intelligence appointees...

The reasons for Trump’s striking behavior—whether he was bribed or blackmailed or something else—remain to be ascertained. That he has publicly refused to defend his country’s independent electoral process—and did so jointly with the foreign dictator who perverted that process—is video-recorded fact.

And it’s a fact that has to be seen in the larger context of his actions in office: denouncing the EU as a “foe,” threatening to break up nato, wrecking the U.S.-led world trading system, intervening in both U.K. and German politics in support of extremist and pro-Russian forces, and his continued refusal to act to protect the integrity of U.S. voting systems—it adds up to a political indictment whether or not it quite qualifies as a criminal one...

Rude Pundit:

...So I can say without equivocation that, today, at his press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump offered more aid and comfort to Russia than any victim of Joe McCarthy and HUAC ever did. When Trump blamed the United States for, in essence, not doing more to prevent Russia from hacking the DNC and electoral interference, when Trump declared the investigation into Russia's election fuckery a "disaster for our country" because "I think it's kept us apart, it's kept us separated," when Trump said of his own Director of National Intelligence, "My people came to me, Dan Coates, came to me and some others they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia," he did more to undermine the United States than all the poor saps that McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and Dick Nixon accused of being spies and traitors combined...

As of right now, FIVE of the top things trending on Twitter in the Tampa region are these hashtags: #Treason, #TraitorTrump, #ImpeachTrump, Rand Paul (who recently defended trump's press conference performance), and Marina Butina (a Russian national just arrested today for illegally working as a criminal agent funneling Russian funds to the NRA's 2016 political fundraising, essentially further proof of Russian interference in our elections). Granted, Tampa is a relatively Blue region in a Red-tilting State, but this is covering a lot of Red suburban communities from Pasco, Polk, and surrounding counties. I've never seen the Tampa trends so virulently railing against a political figure/party like this.

Myself:

If we are hoping for the modern Republican Party to wake up to this crisis and fix the damage done, forget it. Every solution to having trump subvert our foreign policy requires Republicans in Congress growing a collective spine they've never had before. Every solution to stopping Russian hacking into our electoral systems requires legislation and proactive efforts that undermine the Republicans' own efforts at suppressing voters they don't want (i.e. the ones who'll vote for Democrats).

Everything that Russia wants to do to break American democratic norms coincides nicely with Republican efforts to do the same thing. As a result, the Republican leadership may recoil at the optics of having trump sell this nation out to Putin, but they will not raise a goddamn finger to stop him.

The only solution right now is a mass voter uprising, where every Democrat and every Independent voter gathers together as one and vote the Republicans out of power. Granted, the GOP is trying every voter suppression trick in the books - removing registered voters from the rolls, forcing requirements to register that deny the right to vote from the poor the minorities and the youth, cutting back on precincts and early voting polls - but if voters overwhelm with a large turnout they can't stop that.

In the meantime, we are stuck with a traitor - there is NO OTHER WORD TO DESCRIBE trump RIGHT NOW - sitting in the White House, defaming our nation's intelligence agencies, selling us out to a foreign power in Putin's Russia that wants to turn us (and the rest of Europe) into their puppets, and desecrating every minute of every day the very Oath of Office - to DEFEND the United States - he is failing to uphold.

GODS HELP US WE ARE SO VERY ROYALLY FUCKED.

Quick Note: Are We Effed Yet? Are We Effed Yet? Are We Effed Yet?

Follow the hashtag #TreasonSummit online via the Intertubes to find out if trump has surrendered the United States without a shot in person to Putin.

We may not know until later just how bad the damage is. Maybe when trump decides on issuing an Article 13 against NATO. Right now everything is just guesswork and dread.

Update 3:29 PM: OHHHHHHHHH WE ARE FUCKING EFFED NOW.

Acts of War

This morning has been all abuzz over the firing of Rex Tillerson, Worst Secretary of State (via the Atlantic).

Tillerson was, as is now recognized even by those who put him there, a disaster. As with most spectacular Washington flame-outs, his failures stem not from stupidity or general incompetence, but from a specific set of disabilities... He was a debacle, pure and simple, the worst secretary of state in living memory (and there has been serious competition) not because of ineptitude, but because of the semi-intentional demolition job he was doing on his own department even as he fell out of presidential favor...

But WHY did Tillerson fall out of Presidential favor? Was it just the "trump's a moron" moment of candid talk? Was it that Tillerson wasn't working fast enough to dismantle the entire State Department?

No, Tillerson finally fell out of favor because he did the one thing trump will never allow: Tillerson accused the Russians of being naughty. Back to the Atlantic and to David Frum:

The White House’s account of the Tillerson firing collapsed within minutes... Senior administration officials told outlets including The Washington Post and CNN that Tillerson had been told he would be dismissed on Friday, March 9... Within the hour, the State Department issued a statement insisting that Tillerson “had every intention of remaining” and “did not speak to the President this morning and is unaware of the reason.” (as a side note Frum hadn't mentioned, but trump went and first the State Department aide who contradicted the White House's timeline on the firing)

...A lot turns on that timing. On March 12, Tillerson had backed the British government’s accusation that Russia was culpable for a nerve-agent attack on United Kingdom soil. If Tillerson had been fired March 9, then his words of support for Britain could not explain his firing three days before. But if the White House was lying about the timing, it could be lying about the motive.

And since it now seems all but certain that the White House was lying about the timing, it looks more probable that it was lying about the motive too...

What Frum is getting at: trump fired Tillerson because trump didn't want Russia accused of anything.

The backstory: There was a recent attack on an ex-Russian spy who just happened to be someone who was a likely source for the Steele Dossier, which just happened to catalog a lot of unsavory connections between trump, the Russian mob, and Putin. That attack, using a Russian-type nerve agent, has placed that agent Sergi Skripal and his daughter Yulia at death's door AND caused serious health concerns to the police and local civilians who were in contact with the victims and the possible attack site(s).

As a result, Prime Minister May has directly challenged Russia to answer for the attack within the next two-three days, and openly called on allies - ahem, the U.S. - to join in her condemnation of Russia's violation of British sovereignty.

trump's answer: Nothing. At least this morning, when he gave this tepid response that Frum found insulting:

That suspicion was accelerated by the president’s words to the White House press corps before stepping aboard Marine One:

“As soon as we get the facts straight, if we agree with them, we will condemn Russia or whoever it may be.”

That is not support for Britain. It is the direct opposite.

Britain and the United States share intelligence information fully, freely, and seamlessly. It’s inconceivable that the U.S. government has not already seen all the information that Theresa May saw before she rose in the House of Commons to accuse Russia.

If the U.S. government had a serious concern about the reliability of that information, it would have expressed that concern directly and privately to the U.K. government before May spoke. But the U.S. had no such concern—that’s why the now-fired secretary of state and the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom both endorsed May’s words. When Trump raises doubts about the facts, about American agreement with its British ally, about the accuracy of the British accusation against Russia, Trump is not expressing good-faith uncertainty about imperfect information. Trump is rejecting the consensus view of the U.K. and U.S. intelligence communities about an act of Russian aggression—and, if his past behavior is any indication, preparing the way for his own determination to do nothing...

trump doesn't want to act - much in the same reason he doesn't want to enforce the Congressional sanctions just passed last year, much in the same reason he will never speak ill of Putin - because it is clear now trump owes Russia his entire current status and (presumed) wealth.

All of the financial history being uncovered of trump's business ties, and possible money laundering, and personal subservience to people who may have blackmailed/extorted trump into their puppet. It all explains trump's refusal to pick a side in the growing war between Putin and Western democracies.

Look at what Putin is doing: there is case after case of Russian hacking and social media interference in election after election, and he is not stopping. Putin wants to weaken every NATO nation he can to make way for him to reclaim Russian dominance in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. He wants all sanctions against him and his criminal cronies lifted. He wants to silence all critics using the Stalin Method of "No Man No Problem": the body count has been noticed for years, and the smug SOB just pulled ANOTHER possible assassination on another Russian on British soil this afternoon.

Putin wants to fuck the rest of the world.

And trump is willing to help him do it.

What Putin is doing, and wants to keep doing, violates multiple nations' sovereign rights, and threaten their very existences. He may not be sending in tanks and troops, but he IS attacking these nations through one of the very things that should be held sacrosanct: their right and power to vote for their own leaders.

Putin is at war with the rest of the world. When the hell is the rest of the world going to do something about it?

Because trump's made it clear he's not doing a damn thing to stop Putin.

the damn traitor.

Marking Out the trump Criminal Scorecard

So what exactly should we expect from Mueller's investigation into trump's ties with Russia and how that might have affected the 2016 elections?

Obstruction

This is the one where Mueller has trump dead to rights.

This one is so obvious that ongoing revelations of how trump is handling the FBI (then Mueller) investigation into his ties to Russia - he wants to keep firing everybody - that by now even amateur prosecutors - even sideline pundits! - can argue a strong case he broke this law.

To quote William Saletan over at Slate discussing what trump tried to do in June 2017 in trying (and failing) to fire Mueller:

Look back over the Russia investigation, and you’ll see this pattern: Trump constantly sought control. In January 2017, he told Comey that he expected loyalty. A month later, Trump tried to stop Attorney General Jeff Sessions from recusing himself. Later, Trump fired Comey and rebuked Sessions for failing to protect Trump from the investigation. In July, Trump drew a red line around his personal finances and signaled to Mueller that he had better not cross that line. And in August, Trump called up members of Congress to derail legislation that would impede him from firing Mueller.

...the Times report shows that when Trump tried to fire Mueller, he did so despite warnings that this might be criminal. By May 22, it was widely reported that Mueller was obliged to investigate—and was, in fact, investigating—whether Trump had obstructed justice by firing Comey. When Trump moved in June to oust Mueller, he was essentially ignoring those reports...

To impeach and remove a president for obstructing justice, you need to show that his intent in targeting investigators was corrupt. The easy way is to find tapes in which he talks explicitly about orchestrating false testimony. The harder way is to show that he has repeatedly lied about his motives and has maneuvered to control the investigation, despite warnings to back off. Trump’s assault on Mueller, coupled with his previous assaults on Comey, Sessions, Rosenstein, and McCabe, solidifies that case. He obstructed justice...

Or referring to Adam Serwer over at The Atlantic:

Obstruction of justice is a crime that depends on a person’s state of mind, and so is difficult for prosecutors to prove. The law on whether a sitting president can be prosecuted, as opposed to impeached and removed from office by Congress, is unsettled. But legal experts say that Trump’s pattern of behavior has made the case against him much stronger, because that pattern shows Trump repeatedly attempting to undercut the investigations into Russian interference and obstruction, and then in some cases misleading the public about it. That Trump was unsuccessful in firing Mueller is irrelevant—obstruction is a crime whether or not the attempt succeeds.

“At some point, a pattern of the same conduct indicates willfulness and intentionality,” said John Q. Barrett, a law professor at St. John’s University and former associate special counsel in the Iran-Contra affair.

This one is so blatant and obvious that when - not if - Mueller presents his Obstruction charges to the court that handles this case - I think it's the DC district - the judge will insist trump's lawyers work out a plea deal because they ain't winning this one. You gotta grade this one a 100 percent lock.

Money Laundering / Financial crimes

The starting point here is Paul Manafort and his circle of questionable financial practices (and foreign government ties) as part of the trump/Kushner financial "empire".

There's a reason Mueller brought onto his team people experienced in pursuing Racketeering and Money Laundering cases. With trump's history of bad business, bankruptcies, fraud trials, and other financial misdeeds, "Follow the Money" is the best way to find out what trump really did and which laws he broke along the way.

Given how Mueller's already brought charges on Manafort, there's a good likelihood any business deals involving trump or Kushner (Son-in-Law) will lead to similar charges on them. Until Mueller reveals exactly what numbers he has, and which laws apply to trump's fraudulent behaviors, none of us should really say for sure. If anything, Mueller better reveal trump's tax returns just so Americans can find out how much trump's been lying about his net worth... Give this one about 90 percent certainty.

Voter Fraud / Campaign Finance Fraud / Electoral Interference

This is the meat of the matter, and one that needs confirmation of what happened. These are the tidbits that have been floating on the edges of the story, clues here and rumors there, about how Russian hackers played a major role in the 2016 elections. With so many public statements from trump and his Republican allies that exposed those stories as more than rumors.

Where Obstruction and Money Laundering may be the easiest things Mueller can prove, these charges are equally hardest to prove.

Part of what Mueller has to prove is how Russia could have used any voter data information from trump's people (and Republican pollsters) to craft a psych-ops program of manipulating voter turnout via social media. This requires understanding how polling works, and how it crafts campaigns (and their third-party SuperPAC supporters). This is where they can lose jurors who might not comprehend how groupthink / "mob mentality" works (and where the law may be incapable of viewing as criminal).

There are reports of voter suppression in the key states - Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania - where results eked out in favor of trump. While the DHS retracted an early report and claimed in that linked report I added that there was no evidence of hacking, it does leave open the possibility that something happened that Homeland Security can't yet confirm. One possible way of confirming that hackers affected the electronic balloting (or vote counting) would be finding out what trump or his people knew about those hacking efforts, of which trump eagerly egged the Russians on.

There's also ongoing reports from the foreign intelligence agencies - wait, the Dutch have a spy agency??? - that have tracked the Russian hacking teams (Cozy Bear?? Who named these guys?) that our intel agencies believe were the major offenders (Cozy Bear has been identified being behind the DNC email hacks during the election).

If trump and/or the Russians have done any due diligence in clearing out/hiding their paper trail on this, Mueller won't have much to go on. And as I've mentioned, Mueller is likely going to focus on what he can prove - and win - in court. So get this around 40 percent likely.

However. If any one of these cyber attacks by Russian hackers can be proved to have affected our elections, that's a serious crime. If Mueller can prove trump or any of his people had knowledge before or after, there better be charges filed against them. If trump and his people had any active role in these attacks...

Treason

This is, in truth, the hardest argument to prove. Not so much because we can't tell if trump betrayed his nation - his eagerness to embrace and trust Russia and Putin over fellow Americans is obvious, not necessarily criminal - but because the Founders intentionally made Treason one of the hardest crimes to prove. (They would know, because they themselves were traitors to the British Crown: they knew what it was like to live on that razor's edge)

There's such a high bar of legality to cross - two or more witnesses, clear actions that go against the national security or well-being of the citizenry - that bringing this to trial requires some serious fucking shit Mueller and his team uncovered (maybe a verifiable handwritten letter from trump to Putin saying "thanks for rigging the election, here's me ending the sanctions and letting you pummel NATO into dust"). It's unlikely Mueller would find something that incriminating, and more likely that Mueller will focus on stuff that will stand up in court (and mollify Congressional Republicans into staying out of the way).

This is up here, because let's be honest a lot of trump-haters - myself included - take one look at trump's eagerness to hand everything to Putin on a silver platter and we recoil with the belief that trump IS betraying us to a foreign power.

This would be pretty to think so, but we should not get our hopes up. I'm not grading this as a possibility of happening, okay maybe 5 percent. Again, Mueller has got to find a planet-busting cobalt bomb of doom in the evidence pile for this to happen.

Mueller's next step is interviewing trump (or else trump's lawyers arguing against it). That's gotta be the last step in this investigation.

We should know soon what Mueller knows.

Gods help us.

The New Year Better Open With a Shit-Ton of Arrests For the trump Campaign

This shit, I can't even right now (via the New York Times):

During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton...

...Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role.

The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired.

Trying to keep up with the timeline on this should be a full-time PAYING gig at the honest media outlets. As long as the benefits include free drinks at the nearest bar because SWEET JESUS CHRIST THIS IS INSANE.

...The information that Mr. Papadopoulos gave to the Australians answers one of the lingering mysteries of the past year: What so alarmed American officials to provoke the F.B.I. to open a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign months before the presidential election?

It was not, as Mr. Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign. Instead, it was firsthand information from one of America’s closest intelligence allies...

Don't forget that by July 27 - when the leaks were becoming noticeable and the media was noting that it seemed to come from Russia - trump openly called on Russia to hack Hillary some more.

trump is now running around claiming "It's not collusion, but if it IS collusion is not a crime." Well, dealing with a foreign nation to subvert the U.S. Election system IS a crime. Getting that foreign nation to hack American citizens for your benefit is a crime. And knowing how trump works - that it's all about the money (and money HE can acquire) - I'm willing to bet there's a lot of fraudulent stuff there to boot (there's a reason why Mueller brought in investigators experienced in money laundering cases).

Every last bit of this on trump's side of things reeks of TREASON: "Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason..." We may not be directly at war with Russia, and the Cold War itself a historic relic, but we are opposed to that nation on many foreign issues - especially Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Middle East - to where we have active sanctions against Russia (something that trump promised to end, there's your Quid Pro Quo).

If this were England involving itself in our election, if this were France, if this were Canada or Jamaica or Egypt or Saudi Arabia or any other "close ally" of ours, this would still be a problem because a FOREIGN POWER would be involving itself in the sovereign affairs of our own government. We had an international scandal when a British Ambassador commented on the election of 1888, which may have thrown the election against Grover Cleveland (who won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College, SOUND FAMILIAR?). Our own government admittedly meddled in the elections of other nations during the Cold War, under the pretext of stopping global Communism, so say hello to the irony of Russia interfering in ours.

So this bothers me. It horrifies me, truly, that the Republican Party seems willing to sign off on this to clench onto political power they might not have honestly earned. That trump and his campaign staffers seem - based on the known evidence - to willingly, gleefully seek Russia's aid in all of this reaches a level of criminality that fits - to my American sensibilities - the definition of treason.

Arrest them all. Damn them. Let this new year be a clean slate for the nation.

Digging the trump Hole Deeper w/Update

Update below:
The current status of the Russia-trump Scandal is such a massive turn of affairs - revealing direct acts of collusion with a foreign power - that I'm better off referring you to David A Graham's take over at the Atlantic about it.

Yet with Donald Trump Jr.’s release of self-incriminating emails on Tuesday, the nation learned that the wildest of fantasies was all too real: Granted the chance to take what he believed to be damaging information about Hillary Clinton from a Russian government official, provided because the Kremlin wished to aid his father, Trump Jr. eagerly seized the opportunity. “If it’s what you say I love it,” he wrote to an intermediary. Not only that, but he brought along his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort...

...If Trump really knew nothing about the June 9 meeting, one wonders what it was that he was so eager to suppress in his calls to the intel chiefs and his firing of James Comey. And as the collusion scenario that once seemed so implausible is verified by an email trail, which of the other allegations are true, too?

On a serious note: DEAR SWEET JESUS THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WAS ACTIVELY WORKING WITH RUSSIA TO F-CK WITH OUR ELECTION. THIS IS TREASON.

On a lighter note: Dear Sweet Jesus, these guys are morons.

The way trump jr. handled this entire revelation - by denying, admitting, evading, re-admitting, and then dumping his emails without realizing they contained incriminating proof - showed a complete lack of operational awareness. If anything, utter cluelessness about what was right or wrong. Either he thinks what he did wasn't illegal - it was, under 52 US Code 30121 - or that he's untouchable.

It's that last part that's troubling. Because one of the recurring points about this ongoing scandal is how many unforced errors the trump people have committed since the intel reports started picking up the scent in 2016. Half the people involved in the attempted cover-ups - including the Alpha Dog trump himself - keep blabbing and tripping over themselves in a rush to excuse away an early report, quickly exposing fresh evidence that just piles on the damage.

There's been comparisons about the trump empire being akin to a Mafia family (it doesn't help that being a NYC land developer likely had donald rubbing shoulders with real mobsters his whole career). But each new self-inflicted wound brings up the sorry likelihood that the trump power circle is made up entirely of Fredos. (all apologies to actor John Cazale, who was a brilliant performer whose life was cut short)

We were warned. I warned people. This was going to be an incompetent regime, led by those lacking any political savvy or administrative skill. Who turned out to get where they are through manipulation, lies, and (with Russia's help) cheating instead of any actual talent.

Right now, it's not a question of how criminal the trump campaign was. It's a question of what the hell the rest of our government - the ones who are sworn to serve and protect our nation - is going to do about stopping them.

Update: As always, leave it to a master of snark to point out the obvious WTF stupidity of junior:

When Being Sober Is A Curse: I Blame trump

How can I cope with my recurring depression when trump keeps ruining the universe like this (via Frum at the Atlantic)?

But the basic story line is clear. It was clear in real time—and it’s clearer than ever after the Hamburg summit. Whatever exactly happened at the meeting between Trump and Putin, the president’s Sunday morning Twitter storm confirms: Trump has accepted Putin’s denials as the final word on the matter.

Why would not Trump accept it? He has insisted that the accounts of Russian interference in the US election are a “made-up story,” a hoax by sore-loser Democrats. Putin told Trump nothing that Trump did not already believe—or anyway, that Trump wanted everyone else to believe. If there was any question before Hamburg, that question was settled at Hamburg: There will be no consequences for Russia. They attacked American electoral processes and succeeded. The president Russia helped to install will not punish Russia for helping to install him.

It's shit like this that would drive me to drink if I ever developed the habit of liking alcohol. But I'm so sober it's a goddamned curse.

To quote a saner, hopefully sober Betty Cracker from Balloon Juice:

I don’t expect to like any Republican president’s policies. And Trump is a person of exceedingly low character, so I expect him to behave in an embarrassing manner. But sometimes I wonder if my antipathy toward the man distorts my view of his performance. Is it possible that, while he routinely fucks up and brings shame upon the country, Trump’s presidency isn’t the unmitigated disaster I think it is?

Then I watch something like this summary from an Australian analyst, and I think, nah, it’s not just me...

A compromised, incompetent, deranged buffoon is the president of the United States. The president is surrounded and enabled by amoral, unpatriotic, power-hungry people who will paper over his gaping deficiencies and corruption to pursue their own agendas.

That’s bad, obviously. But the normalization of the situation poses its own dangers.
To pick on NBC for a moment, how could a “top-5 takeaways” piece fail to mention Trump’s insane assertion that “everyone” at the G-20 was talking about John Podesta, which also indicated Trump has no idea what role Podesta played in 2016 or, more alarmingly, the CIA’s role in investigating crimes against U.S. citizens? How could a round-up piece not include the weird and unprecedented insertion of Trump’s knockoff bag and shoe peddler spawn into the conference? Or his capitulation to Putin on an attack on U.S. sovereignty?

My complaint isn’t just about the sorry state of Beltway coverage. We’ve been kvetching about routine hackery for decades and will for decades to come, I suspect. But living in a country run by a madman and his accomplices warps reality for everyone, including the people whose job is to provide facts that help shape our perceptions. It’s probably easier for news sources outside the U.S. to frame the Trump menace accurately. But this interminable national crisis will require all of us to keep a grip on what’s real and what’s an illusion...

Ye Gods. Lemme bring up that Australian reporter's rant:

This is what a power vacuum looks like, America: We have a preening, self-absorbed and self-deluded con artist running things. trump wants to keep selling his agenda of being cozy with Putin and Russia, that "there's no collusion" and no conspiracy to subvert our electoral process... even as the real-world evidence piles up that collusion happened.

trump wants us to believe Russia didn't hack our elections, and even wants to team up with Russia on a joke of a "joint" Cybersecurity project that would likely expose our nation's own security protocols. He's doing this even as Russia is hacking our nation's electric power grid.

I'm with Abed on this: We've gone down the Darkest Timeline in this Multiverse, where a vain madman is in control of the United States, aided and abetted by a partisan Congress and a blind mainstream media.

I want to find the portal back to the Normal Timeline, please.

What the Actual F-CKSH-T IS THIS?

(Updated below)
This isn't much from me, this is pretty much what I read last night on Balloon-Juice:

(link to Washington Post) Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted secret communications channel with Kremlin.

Ambassador Sergei Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, then President-elect Trump’s son-in-law and confidant, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications.

The meeting also was attended by Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.
Neither the meeting nor the communications of Americans involved were under U.S. surveillance, officials said.

The Post bolded that last. So the information came from…?

Reportedly the Post got an anonymous letter from inside the trump campaign. They've held onto it while verifying it, and apparently got confirmation from other Intel people who were able to dig up related info.

So here's the deal: Kushner went to Kislyak - alongside Flynn, who is already in a world of trouble with his ties to foreign nations - and wanted to set up a super-secret backchannel to Russia (Putin) in a way that our own government agencies wouldn't know about it. Subverting the Hotline that already exists with Russia, avoiding our own State Department, sneaking past the FBI and CIA and Congress. Kushner wanted to use resources at the Russian Embassy to do this, a request even the Russians viewed as crazy.

As a side note, Kushner did not report this meeting with Kislyak on his SF-86 form. He's had several contacts with Russians he failed to report.

The trump people are claiming they were doing this "to work out a peace deal over Syria," but why do it this way? There's a perfectly good STATE DEPARTMENT sitting right there they can use that's DESIGNED FOR DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS.

What this looks like to me, and I admit there's a bit of bias and rage here, is that Kushner wanted to keep himself and trump in contact with the Russian business and political allies they've had since the 1990s.

The same Russian allies they had during their 2016 campaign currently under investigation for Russian efforts to sabotage/subvert our election.

This is, to me, Kushner allying himself with a foreign power, trying to circumvent our own government's rules and organizations to serve his own interests against everyone else's.

HOW THE HELL IS THIS NOT TREASON?

Update: David Atkins over at Washington Monthly tries to think out the reasons:

So what monumental idiocy, urgent imperative and guilty necessity would drive Jared Kushner to reach out to Kislyak to request a secret back channel to the Kremlin during the transition period? Any aboveboard diplomatic explanation defies belief. Even a theoretically legitimate policy disagreement with the Obama White House would have been a non-starter, as there is only one president at a time, and therefore only one foreign policy at a time...

The motive has to be personal, then.

There are really only two possible explanations: that Kushner needed to arrange personal matters with Russian business partners and/or creditors without anyone but the Kremlin knowing (very bad and likely criminal) or that Kushner needed to arrange some sort of political deal with the Russians without the knowledge of the American intelligence services (potentially treasonous.) Or it could be both.

There simply isn’t any other reasonable explanation.

Which means the White House has a whole lot of explaining to do. Not just the White House, but the entire Trump family, including Donald and Ivanka.

This corruption is what 62 million of you voted for. I hope you're thrilled.