The issue isn't that Trump is a Russian agent, it's that it appears as though he was, at the least, a useful idiot of a Russian intelligence campaign, and at worst somebody who actively colluded with it since it was to his benefit.

0% chance he takes his orders from Moscow, but that's not really the issue at all.

Also people who were useful idiots of Russian intelligence: Jill Stein and all her enablers

twitter.com/AP_Politics/status/840264161997279233


kleptosaywhat


spicer, yesterday: trump admin didn't know until flynn reg'd on tuesday

I'm surprised this doesn't get discussed more often. The only places on the globe that the Western corporate/banking elite can't freely extract wealth from on a mass scale are Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela. Iraq and Afghanistan used to be on that list. The clear desire to control every single square foot of real estate on the planet should scare the **** out of most people. I honestly don't know whether it's just a matter of cognitive dissonance, or people are too dumb to see what's going on.

Details shmetails. Trump wasn't going to be bothered having people with government knowledge and experience around as he took over the whitehouse🙏🏼.

It's a problem, though -- the Democrats have no audience for this kind of message either. That's the knot the establishment left/Democratic position has tied themselves in: by softening their criticism of capitalism and embracing market orthodoxy over the last few generations, there's no real audience for this message either. I think you're correct: there's a trenchent criticism there that the Trump style politics are controlled by a bunch of rich bozos whose first order priority is to capital accumulation and who sell their power and authority to ethnonationalists who care primarily about their white Christian identity. Nationalism is irrelevant to these people; they use it as a limited kludge and borrow its symbols but it's not a meaningful nationalism. But by the same token, it's not that Trump and Putin are colluding to help Russia insofar as they are mutually colluding to help themselves accumulate capital and power.

The left has gutted themselves by the same factors we were recently discussing in the Tragic Death of the Democratic Party thread and gun control; they spent so much time triangulating and becoming lite-Republicans that the meta-messages all tilted to the GOP favor: both parties just nod along with the idea that capital is great, capitalists are awesome, the rich are just like us, using capital to ensure you get everything you want and control the state is just smart business, if you want a job you have to compete and just do whatever capital interests want. By fellating business, capital, finance, management, and multi-national corporations and essentially embracing all of their talking points and policies, just with a large welfare state, they've totally abandoned any way to correctly frame what Trump is. What the wrong is here.

So they've fallen into these scandals that essentially try to rouse nationalist sentiments since they have an audience that cares little for the traditional leftist critiques. But they're faced with a population where neither side is essentially getting much: the left has never prized their American identity. The poor, racial minorities, etc. have never gotten to bask in the great things. The right is bewildered by the claim; how could a rich white guy stand opposed to America, he's one of us.

It's bad politics and it's a long-term problem.

The political situation wrt the Trump-Russia situation is disastrous. Trump supporters are so deep into his cult, they are turning on their own Republican members of Congress just for wanting an investigation. Treason is no big deal to these folks as long as it got them their desired candidate for President.

twitter.com/nytimes/status/840244862901444608


lol

Wikileaks getting in on the bullshit, claiming it was teh CIA who hacked the DNC to help hillary win the election. They're russian agents.

This also means russia has infiltrated the CIA. Get the ruskies the **** out of here.

https://twitter.com/grynbaum/status/840241710223544320

The US has devolved into a poorly written espionage novel.

It's not like there's a lot of evenly distributed wealth to pillage out of most of that list. In other words, an extremely authoritarian regime is going to concentrate wealth at the top through corruption, something too communist/socialist is going to see economic growth slow down due to disincentives for working harder, but unrestricted capitalism will concentrate it to the top too.

Obviously, the solution is a balance. Capitalism with regulations and protections for the general public, and progressive taxes so the wealth doesn't get distributed TOO crazily to the top, but hard work and intelligence and creativity are still rewarded handsomely.

The problem in the US is that because the Republicans are for unrestrained and unregulated capitalism with basically no protections for the population as a whole, the Democrats are in a quandary. If you are for moderate protections and reasonable capitalism (which they are), you win and get the ball on the one-yard line, hoping to get it to the 50. Republicans win and start with the ball at midfield. The solutions are either for the Democrats to shift hard-left economically, and for the tug of war to hopefully balance in the middle, or for the general public to get WOKE and for both sets of constituents to demand moderate economic policies from their parties - mainly a change for the Republicans.

The Camp of the Saints isn't exactly an espionage novel.

It looks like Tillerson found something to do.

Spicer just referenced SNL... "Don't make me make the podium move."

I actually agree with him on the jobs report. Not a big deal, maybe they should read the rule and not screw up again, but it was designed to avoid causing market fluctuations and his comment was only "great news," which is kind of obvious. Fair to ask, but not something that should go beyond a quick question and them not doing it again.

Back in my day when a young soldier would show up with their stupid Velcro flag upside or on the wrong shoulder, they would be doing push ups until their arms fell off. I hope Mattis puts a foot up his ass.

The distribution of wealth doesn't really matter much. In fact, uneven distribution is probably better for them. In first world countries they have to go to the trouble of inventing schemes to rent-seek from a large population. In third world countries they can just rent-seek directly from whatever provincial governor they put in place. Better to just have some strongman put Exxon in charge of a nation's oil extraction, rather than nickel and dime hundreds of millions of people with cell phone data overages, airline baggage charges, checking account overdraft fees, and insurance claim denials.

I think that the bolded above pretty much sums it up. Putin and Russia had little to gain from an overt conspiracy with Trump supporters. They probably preferred winks and nods, if only to maintain plausible deniability and to insulate themselves from reprisal in the event of a Trump meltdown. My best guess about the truth is:

1) The Trump campaign did not direct, coordinate, or even have advance knowledge of Russia's efforts to meddle with the election.

2) Russia never outright admitted to the Trump campaign that it was meddling with the election.

3) Trump started down the "Putin is OK" road because he has significant business interests in Russia. He stuck to the path because (i) he is a liar; (ii) he is stubborn; (iii) he still has financial interests in Russia; (iv) he honestly admires Putin's autocratic style of governance; and and (v) he thinks that any acknowledgment of Russia as a bad actor undermines the legitimacy of his election victory.

4) Trump's tax returns would make clear that he has business interests in Russia, which is why he will never release them except at the point of a bayonet.

5) The Trump campaign signaled to Russia that (i) Trump would support lifting sanctions if he got elected (see Flynn, Michael), and (ii) a Trump administration would have little interest in investigating whether Russia was meddling in the election.

6) Sessions gave a Bill Clinton-style response in his confirmation hearing mostly because he is an idiot, not because he is or was a critical figure in a Trump/Russia conspiracy.

7) If the other shoe drops on a broader conspiracy, one of the top three gangsters (Stone, Manafort, or Bannon) will be right in the middle of it.

I would agree with any other administration. In this case it is one more bit of evidence these people have no idea what they are doing. They are totally incompetent from top to bottom.

That's actually why I think this is sort of pointless to harp on. There are so many better examples of their incompetence and malfeasance, that using one that can be easily knocked down as being not a big deal and just partisan bickering is counter-productive. Hit them where it hurts; don't throw them pitches they can easily foul off and don't add to the noise that distracts from the big issues. This administration would love nothing more than to spend the next couple of days watching the news media debate whether 22-minute gate is a big deal.

Edited to add: Also, arguing about this just draws extra attention to the jobs report that Trump gets to take credit for, which builds up his political capital.

While that might be true, for a huge number of Americans somehow moderate regulation is dark red socialism. And the mindset that lets people think that regulated capitalism is a bad thing, is also the mindset that prevents Americans from having universal health care. The US is leading in so many fields, yet they are only western country without a universal heath care system.

I wonder what that it is, that keeps American society from working together. You see it in the education system, the (non existent) social security systems, health care, etc. it is basically everybody for themselves which leaves behind everybody who is not above the meridian of the average income.

It is almost as if there just isn't a society in the USA.

this is about where i am at. i think wikileaks probably had some coordination with the trump campaign though (mostly think this because of those roger stone tweets before the releases)

This. Next person that says there's is smoke but no fire I'll take a dump in their shoe.