Friday, July 26, 2019

Robert Mueller: The Knight who Tripped over his Lance

Dateline: WASHINGTON, D.C.—Robert Mueller stunned the quarter of Americans who are intent on keeping their country from sliding down the tubes, by turning in a lackluster performance in his televised hearings before Congress.

Knowing that most Americans prefer to watch television than to read, Democrats had hoped Mr. Mueller would translate the legalese of his muddled report into bombshell talking points, to fire up the calls to begin impeachment proceedings against an egregious pseudopresident, Donald Trump, who has profaned the White House or else shown that the myths of the sacredness of American values have always been lies. 

Mr. Mueller refused to comply with those pleas for assistance in saving the republic from the chthonic forces of populist anarchy and right-wing Christian balderdash. As the adorable progressives in the congressional hearings praised his patriotism and lobbed softball questions about Mr. Trump’s galaxy of wrongdoings, Mr. Mueller revealed that he’s a doddering old man clinging desperately to the letter of the law like a clueless Pharisee.

The director of the investigation into Mr. Trump’s conspiracy to turn the United States into a fascist hellhole refused to venture further than the findings of his report, just as that report declined to indict Mr. Trump for his obvious conspiracy with Russia and obstruction of justice. No such report was needed in the first place to remind everyone about the president’s millions of crimes and sins against the human spirit.

In a press conference following his anticlimactic appearances before Congress, Mr. Mueller clarified his reluctance to help save his country by lowering himself to the level to which the United States has sunk since the megalomania of Richard Nixon.

“The problem is that politicians have the cooties,” said Mr. Mueller. “The Democrats didn’t just want me to give political answers. They wanted me to associate with politicians, to be in the same room with cootie-ridden, pants-on-fire liars, with sordid, money-grubbing cowards and demagogues who won’t even take my report to the next logical stage and file to impeach the president.”

Mr. Mueller stressed that he would much rather be stalking poor foreigners in the jungles of Vietnam, mowing them down with machine-gun fire and drinking their blood with his stony-faced Marine buddies.  

For her part, Nancy Pelosi welcomed Mr. Mueller’s letdown, since she has no intention of appearing strong and heroic by impeaching the president in spite of senate opposition. According to her fevered dream, American voters in 2020 will respect her devotion to the country’s broken legal and political systems, as Democrats labour to put a single relevant witness on the stand in their vacuous investigations that are meant to prove to Americans what they already know, that Donald Trump doesn’t play by the rules.

“Women have taken the power back from vainglorious men,” she declared at a press conference. “Hooray for Democrats!”

Being an elderly low-talker herself, Mrs. Pelosi has apparently forgotten how American voters in 2016 preferred a deranged and marauding troglodyte to the calm and efficient technocrat, Mrs. Clinton.

Forgotten also is the farce of the anachronistic Electoral College, which allowed Mr. Trump to win the presidency despite his loss of the popular vote, and which flies in the face of her presumption that American politics ought to be respected.

Forgotten, too, is the fact that Mr. Trump was nominated only because the Republican Party has been pushed further and further rightward into insanity as a result of decades of Republican gerrymandering, which has given the conservative politicians the equivalent of monopoly power and which likewise mocks the Democrat’s faith in America’s political system.

Forgotten, finally, is that most Americans either have abandoned both political parties, by consistently not voting at all, or welcome Mr. Trump’s villainy since they mean to use his mental disorders to bring down the neoliberal establishment that sold out Middle America as dictated by the wacky religion of free-market economics.  

When the blinders fall,
What vain and shallow knight
Will heed the devil’s call
And douse the fire’s light,
Wipe the writ from the wall,
Save the burned from their spite?
Whence the American gall,
To dub the last day “night”?

45 comments:

  1. "... that report declined to indict Mr. Trump for his obvious conspiracy with Russia and obstruction of justice."

    Due to the lack of evidence of either conspiracy or obstruction is left unsaid. It would be a strange thing indeed to indict anyone based on nothing.

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    1. The evidence for obstruction of justice is in the Mueller report. The evidence for conspiracy with Russia and for numerous other crimes is in thousands of Trump's public statements and actions.

      Even if it turned out that Trump didn't commit any crimes, technically speaking, a case could be made that he should still be indicted to save the country from further humiliation. That's just what what you can expect to happen when you act like a monumental creep and asshole, day in and day out. It's like the "crime" of "driving while black" except that instead of driving while black, Trump would be pretending to be president while being a troglodyte, a malignant narcissist, a cult leader, an ignoramus, and a con man. Do you see how that works?

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  2. There's "evidence" of obstruction in the Mueller report? Then I'm sure you'll be able to show us said "evidence."

    Wow, I didn't realize Trump's "public statements and actions" constituted "evidence" of conspiracy. That's quite a claim. Maybe you could show us how these things prove a conspiracy between Russia and Trump?

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    1. There's evidence also of conspiracy with Russia in the Mueller report. From the report: a "statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts." Also, the "investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts."

      Because of Trump's obstruction of justice, Mueller could find evidence to prove only that Trump was a useful idiot of Russia, not an informed, competent conspirator with or agent of Russia. No one should have thought Trump's competent or sane enough to be a deliberate conspirator. He can't run his companies (without them going bankrupt) or the government (without driving the country to a civil war) or even get a proper haircut (without looking like a vain psychopath). He can't visit the El Paso hospital and an orphaned infant without giving a creepy smile and a thumbs up in a photo op. He's no evil James Bond. But he is _effectively_ a Russian agent (what Russian intelligence calls a "useful idiot").

      Read the report for the details of that evidence. I don't hold the troll's hand.

      Yeah, the funny thing with Trump is that lots of his crimes have been committed out in the open (like when he asked Russia to hack Hillary's emails or when he attacks Russia's enemies and America's allies, dividing Nato, etc). Hence the obviousness of those crimes and of his dereliction of duty (like how he seeks to divide the country instead of intending to represent all Americans).

      But isn't that what Trump's supporters want? The destruction of the American government? The tearing down and humiliation of "the establishment" and "the elites"? That's certainly what Putin wants. And don't Trump's cult members say they'd rather side with Russia than with Democrats?

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    2. "When he asked Russia to hack Hillary's emails"
      You really are a wretched little tard.

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    3. Yeah, on July 27, 2016, Trump told his audience in Florida, "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," and just hours later, according to the Mueller report, the Russians began trying to hack her personal email server.

      If you're going to troll folks, you should at least try not to get owned so quickly. You'll want to stretch it out a little to keep my interest.

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/13/russians-hillary-clinton-email-server-trump-indictment

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    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    5. "According to the Mueller Report"
      Yep, retarded.

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    6. I see you deleted your comment that was full of references to the Russian disinformation about Counterstrike. And I'm supposed to be the retarded one?

      But that's actually a red herring. First you mocked the reference to Trump's asking of the Russians to hack Hillary's emails. I provided a link that proves he did so. Now you mock the entirety of the Mueller report.

      Since you're an incompetent debater and I'm bored, allow me to debate myself in your place. What you were supposed to say is that Trump was just joking about his hope that Russia would hack Hillary's emails, since that was Trump's explanation.

      Then the response would be that Trump is a bullshitter in the technical sense supplied by Harry Frankfurt's book On Bullshit. What this means is that Trump doesn't care about the difference between truth and falsehood. He's a congenital liar and he's transactional not just in his actions but in his speech. Therefore, there's no sense in saying that Trump was just joking on a particular occasion: every single one of his statements is only a joke to him! More precisely, the distinction between being honest or factual and lying or joking doesn't apply to Trump. He doesn't care about that distinction, as is shown by his thousands upon thousands of proven lies and mental projections over the last few years, which flow from his mouth like a mighty river. When you're the pot calling the kettle black, that's one thing. When you do so many thousands of times, you don't care about the facts of colour.

      Moreover, Trump was taught by Roy Cohn and by mafia movies to speak indirectly or by insinuation so as not to be caught saying something wrong.

      Finally, technically Trump wasn't "joking" since a joke is asking "Why did the chicken cross the road?" More precisely, Trump would had to have been trolling the Democrats, which again is par for the course and doesn't imply that Trump would have been horrified if the Russians had gone ahead and tried to hack her emails and given them to him.

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    7. Yes, yes you are absolutely a filthy fucking retard of the highest order. Your link didn't prove jack shit and neither did Mueller.

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    8. I deleted it because I'm compiling evidence for your unbelievably gullible ass. Be fucking patient.

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    9. Is there a way you can present your case without sounding like a savage? In the other thread, you condemn sub-Saharans for being genetically predisposed to aggression. Meanwhile you blame the Swedish for their timidity and for no longer behaving like Vikings, and you write like a bully. That's self-contradictory. Shouldn't you be praising dark-skinned Africans for their aggression, if nature is such an irredeemable, monstrous place?

      Either way, I can do without the gratuitous ad hominem. It's cheap and it's boring.

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  3. From the report: a "statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts."

    This isn't evidence. Far from it. Indeed, it is a statement that reverses the burden of proof: guilty until proven innocent.

    Also, the "investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts."

    Assertions aren't evidence. Is there any evidence to support this claim? I didn't find any in Mueller's report. Maybe you'll have better luck...

    Because of Trump's obstruction of justice, Mueller could find evidence to prove only that Trump was a useful idiot of Russia, not an informed, competent conspirator with or agent of Russia.

    "Obstruction of justice?" Where's the evidence? Also, Mueller "proved" nothing. He made a number of unsubstantiated claims. And BTW Mueller recently had to admit in court that his assertions of a Russian government connection to the indicted IRA had no evidentiary basis whatsoever. In other words, he was talkin' out his ass.

    Read the report for the details of that evidence. I don't hold the troll's hand.

    I have read Mueller's report. Which is the reason I'm pointing to the lack of evidence contained therein.

    And the "troll" accusation is unwarranted. To be clear, I agree with you about Trump: he's a danger not only to the U.S. but to the entire world. HOWEVER, I don't need to invent reasons to oppose Trump. There are a plethora of very good reasons (backed by evidence) to oppose Trump, e.g., his genocidal war in Yemen, support and arming of Saudi Arabia, his push for war on Iran, support for Islamic terrorists in Syria, murderous sanctions against Venezuela, not to mention his treatment of immigrants, his racism and sexism, and so on. The list is almost endless.

    I share your opposition to Trump. Moreover, I've been reading your stuff for years and have always found it both stimulating and provocative, and I've even reevaluated some of my earlier positions based on things you've written. Don't confuse what I'm trying to do here with trolling. I'm trying to get you to see that "Russiagate" isn't what you think it is.

    A good place to start is by googling Aaron Mate, The Grayzone, Consortium News, Caitlin Johnstone, and The Jimmy Dore Show. This isn't an exhaustive list by any means, but they've all done great work debunking the "Russiagate" conspiracy.

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  4. He can't run his companies (without them going bankrupt) or the government (without driving the country to a civil war) or even get a proper haircut (without looking like a vain psychopath). He can't visit the El Paso hospital and an orphaned infant without giving a creepy smile and a thumbs up in a photo op. He's no evil James Bond. But he is _effectively_ a Russian agent (what Russian intelligence calls a "useful idiot").

    Yeah, Trump is offensive and repugnant, I agree. But so what? I won't let my personal distaste for Trump rob me of my critical thinking ability. I don't like Bill and Hillary Clinton either, they're as offensive and repugnant to me as Trump, but that doesn't mean I believe the "Clinton body count" conspiracy theory, or supported Clinton's impeachment. Don't let a bunch of psychopaths rob you of your intellectual integrity.

    Yeah, the funny thing with Trump is that lots of his crimes have been committed out in the open (like when he asked Russia to hack Hillary's emails...

    Asking Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails is not a crime. I could be wrong, but I don't know what law was broken in this case. Do you?

    ... or when he attacks Russia's enemies and America's allies, ...

    I didn't realize Yemen, Syria, Iran, and Venezuela were "America's allies." Last I checked, these were "adversaries," "enemies," or whatever euphemism you want to use, of the U.S. and allies of Russia.

    ... dividing Nato, etc).

    Um, what? "Divided" how, exactly? If you read the history of NATO, you'd realize that it's never been very "united." It's essentially an instrument of U.S. power-projection in Europe. Maybe Trump's bullying behavior has put an ugly face on U.S. dominance, which has nothing to do with Russia, but is a result of Trump's personality. (And there's no evidence Russia wants a divided NATO. Indeed, Russia -- including Yeltsin, Putin, and Medvedev -- have expressed a desire to become a member of NATO. Look it up.)

    Hence the obviousness of those crimes and of his dereliction of duty (like how he seeks to divide the country instead of intending to represent all Americans).

    "Dereliction of duty"? Yeah, that's awful. Not as awful as the war crimes the U.S. has been committing continuously for two decades, from W to Obama to Trump. But, sure, what the heck, by all means, let's cry about Trump not "representing all Americans" (as if Obama or Clinton did so, rather than Wall Street and their wealthy patrons/donors).

    The destruction of the American government? The tearing down and humiliation of "the establishment" and "the elites"? That's certainly what Putin wants.

    How do you know what Putin "wants"? Do you have evidence of this? And, no, anonymous media "sources" and secret "intelligence assessments" (i.e., assertions) we're not shown and likely will never get to see (because they're BS), don't count as evidence.

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    1. Unlike progressives, I don’t put all my anti-Trump eggs in the basket of Mueller and the Russia conspiracy. In my Trump articles on this blog I focus more on Trump’s character than on any of his specific actions. I read Matt Taibbi, so I’m aware of how the media exaggerate the collusion angle. Specifically, they fell for Trump’s talk about “collusion,” as though Trump were competent enough to be a master-spy, whereas they should have been treating Trump as a mere useful idiot. That’s exactly what Trump is with respect to Russia. Instead of pursuing a coherent, unified strategy towards China, Russia, and the Middle East, Trump supplies pure chaos—assuming he’s not seeking petty vengeance or rewarding anyone who flatters him. That chaos and easy manipulation of America’s commander-in-chief hurts the US and helps Russia.

      What Russia wants in general is pretty clear, as the title of the book linked to below makes clear: “Putin's Master Plan: To Destroy Europe, Divide NATO, and Restore Russian Power and Global Influence.” A chaotic, mentally deranged, reckless and incompetent American president who’s also indebted to the Russian mob (because American banks stopped lending to Trump, owing to his incompetence as a businessman) and who’s subject to Russian blackmail (e.g. the Trump Tower deal he lied about and the Russian money laundering through Trump’s properties)—all of that obviously distracts Americans and helps Putin rebuild Russia’s power and influence.

      Personally, that doesn’t bother me so much since I’m not zealously pro-American. I’m aware of the war crimes, the hypocrisy, the American plutocracy, and so on. China, Russia, and Iran look like they’re gaining global control at the expense of the US, largely because Trump has no idea what he’s doing (see, for example, Trump’s tariffs). Those three countries are offensive because of their authoritarianism and inhumanity. The main problem with Trump, then, is that he wants the US to be more like Russia, Iran, and North Korea and less like the social democracies (like Europe, Canada, Australia, etc). Specifically, he wants the US to be a kleptocracy, a kakistocracy, and a pseudo-theocracy. How do I know that? Because that’s the kind of political administration he’s built (or that filled the power vacuum caused by his unfitness for high office) and that’s the kind of business he tried to run for decades. (Note that the theocracy would be just propaganda to cover the financial crimes, insanity, and incompetence).

      Trump doesn’t understand the nature of the country he’s supposed to be representing. He’s not a conservative or a liberal (in the old, Enlightenment sense) or an individualist or even a capitalist or an ideologue of any kind. He’s not even an American in the cultural sense, since he doesn’t respect American institutions (not even the military or intelligence industry), norms, or values. He’s a solipsist (aka a narcissist) and a psychotic con man. He’s a weapon used by American bigots and malcontents to humiliate or destroy the neoliberal establishment, and that’s perfectly consistent with him being effectively an agent (a useful idiot) of Russia, one of America’s foreign authoritarian adversaries.

      Therefore there is no Trump doctrine. That’s why his sane and competent officials quit or were fired, because Trump’s tweets and confused messages undermined their attempt to strategize. See, for example, the second article below, about how Mattis quit because of Trump’s antagonism towards Nato (i.e. American’s allies).

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    2. Trump’s actions in the Middle East are just as chaotic and petty, as the third link shows. Some quotes: “Trump apparently supports the ascendancy of a Saudi-Israeli-UAE axis and the corresponding geopolitical consequences. However, there is no indication that this is the product of careful consideration…[Siding] with the Saudi-Israeli-UAE bloc pleases the president’s political base. It overturns key aspects of his predecessor’s legacy – a personal obsession that also plays well with conservatives – and prioritizes the concerns of evangelical Christians regarding Iran and Israel…Trump’s leadership style has also played a pivotal role in shaping his Middle East policy. By nature, he governs reactively and instinctively and ignores issues he finds uninteresting. His tendency to prioritize loyalty over competence has led to the sidelining of relative moderates and empowered advisers such as Bolton, who has reinforced the president’s belligerent instincts when it comes to Iran, and steered him toward more hawkish positions on Syria.”

      Regarding the Mueller report, if you’ve read it and you don’t think it contains evidence of obstruction of justice, I doubt you know what “evidence” means. Likewise, if you think the report doesn’t “substantiate” its allegations, you’re unclear on the meaning of “substantiate.” See the fourth link for a handy summary of that evidence of obstruction. My favourite in the list of damning pieces of evidence is the firing of Comey which Trump admitted in public on television (!) was done to interfere with the Russia investigation. That was done after Trump tried to lie on Twitter about the reasons for firing him, and then he tried to deny he admitted it was because of Russia, despite the video evidence on NBC, so he can’t even lie well (see the fifth link).

      Again, no Mueller report was even needed because Trump is so vain or insane that he commits his crimes out in the open (like keeping his business ties, creating all sorts of conflicts of interest and violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution; see the sixth link), counting on the corrupt American plutocracy and the cowardice (i.e. femininity) of Democrats to protect him.

      The same goes for his call for Russia to hack Hillary’s emails, which broke campaign finance laws (see the seventh link below).

      I take your point that you’re not a troll or a Trump partisan, but the notion that anyone could find the Clintons “as offensive and repugnant as Trump” is inconceivable to me. I’m aware Fox News has demonized the Clintons for decades, but most of those criticisms are vacuous or disproved conspiracy theories. Trump’s evil far outweighs the Clintons’, because Trump’s is obvious whereas you have to trust in dubious conservative news sources to believe the Clintons are demonic. Even the possibility that Bill Clinton used Epstein to procure young girls is countered by the possibility that Trump did the same, since both had ties to Epstein. There’s virtually nothing bad the Clintons have done that Trump hasn’t done a hundred times worse.

      https://www.amazon.com/Putins-Master-Plan-Destroy-Influence-ebook/dp/B01I8S2GYI

      https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-donald-trump-took-shots-at-nato-in-2018-2018-12#all-this-bluster-and-blasting-1

      https://css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/pdfs/CSSAnalyse233-EN.pdf

      https://qz.com/1670783/all-the-evidence-of-obstruction-of-justice-in-muellers-report/

      https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/31/donald-trump-says-he-didnt-fire-james-comey-over-russia-despite-video-evidence/658790002/

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/19/donald-trump-businesses-hotels-conflict-of-interest

      https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/01/02/trump-broke-law-russia-clinton-emails-hold-him-accountable-column/2449564002/

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    3. Just a quick note, I read “Putin's Master Plan.” Or, rather I suffered through it. It's essentially propaganda. Or a bad joke. It's not serious scholarship. It's bottom of the barrel yellow journalism. Most likely its an opportunistic cash grab, done "quick and dirty and cheap" as they say. Nobody takes it seriously. (Or, at least, nobody should.)

      This is one of the first links that came up when I googled the book, sums it up quite succinctly.

      http://www.ccw.ox.ac.uk/blog/2016/12/14/book-review-putins-master-plan-to-destroy-europe-divide-nato-and-restore-russian-power-and-global-influence-by-schoen-d-with-e-roth-smith

      IF you want to seriously study Russia and Putin, I'd suggest "War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate" by Stephen F. Cohen, a Russia scholar and expert. There's probably no one better.

      https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510745810/war-with-russia/

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    4. Well, I haven't read Putin's Master Plan. I referred to it just because its title happened to capture what many pundits I've heard say is Putin's goal, to reestablish the kind of global respect and influence the Soviet Union had and to do so at the expense of Western democracies such as the US. The fact that Russia interfered with the American election in support of Trump, the chaos agent, to discredit Western democracy, is consistent with assuming that that's his main goal. Internally, Putin's goal is to maintain the corrupt Russian oligarchy (the kleptocracy). That's why he demagogues and scapegoats and cracks down on freedom of speech and on Russian democracy.

      Thanks for the book recommendation. Unfortunately, I've been appalled by Stephen Cohen's performances on TV, since he's a Putin apologist. More impressive to me has been Julia Ioffe on CNN, who panned Cohen's views. See her article and another one below and see also Max Boot's exchange with Cohen. No, I don't entirely trust CNN or Boot, since they're both highly problematic, but so is Cohen, as far as I'm concerned. It's hard to find someone you respect and agree with wholeheartedly. I'm certain Cohen's right that the US has been far from blameless in continuing the Cold War, but Cohen actually said to Boot on CNN that the Russian interference with the American 2016 election doesn't constitute an attack on the country. That's toadying for Putin and it's not respectable.

      https://newrepublic.com/article/117606/stephen-cohen-wrong-russia-ukraine-america

      https://newrepublic.com/article/116820/vladimir-putin-defended-american-leftist

      https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/04/max_boot_vs_stephen_f_cohen_youre_a_russian_apologist_cohen_you_are_criticizing_diplomacy.html

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    5. "Well, I haven't read Putin's Master Plan. I referred to it just because its title happened to capture what many pundits I've heard say is Putin's goal,..."

      Well, that's a big problem right there. The vast majority of commentators in the media are either political pundits, PR flaks, or shills working in think tanks. Their job is to FORM public opinion, they're not paid to INFORM the public but to push a narrative that supports a particular agenda. I try to avoid olitical commentators and pundits as much as possible.

      "... The fact that Russia interfered with the American election in support of Trump, ..."

      I'm sorry, but this is not a fact. This is an assertion unsupported by evidence. To be clear: there is no evidence of Russian "interference" in the 2016 election. Any claim to the contrary cannot stand up to scrutiny. The facts, as we know them, show this quite clearly. This isn't to say there was no interference in the election; quite the contrary, we have plenty evidence of inference in the electoral process. Where to start? First, the Clinton campaign colluded with the DNC to rig the primary against Bernie Sanders. We know this because of the emails WikiLeaks released. Next, we can point to Gerrymandering, voter ID laws (whose only function is to exclude certain groups of people from voting, ie minorities and the poor), the millions of voters who were purged from the voter rolls, and so on, and on, ad nauseum.

      Also, you might want to google "Cross Check" for further evidence. Here's an excellent source:

      https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiS-
      ev7zofkAhUKGbkGHesJDY4QtwIwAHoECBMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv
      %3DC5Uey_jekNY&usg=AOvVaw0nvv9jLVqqcFWErNQsYy4V

      As a result of the rigged primary, Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee. Clinton is the SECOND most distrusted and
      the MOST disliked politician in history. Now, imagine the primary hadn't been rigged. It's much more likely that Bernie could
      have gotten the nomination. And we know from the polling data, that Bernie would have trounced Trump by at least 10 points. Hillary Clinton, in contrast, was statistically tied with Trump (the polls averaging around +/- 3%, within the margin of error). And lest we forget, Clinton won the popular vote, and in a functioning democracy would be president today. What ultimately ensured a Trump presidency was the electoral college. There are many more things I could point to. But notice, there was no need to invoke a Russian conspiracy to explain the election outcome. Occam's Razor tells us not to multiple entities without necessity. Russiagate not only lacks evidence to support it, but more fundamentally it is not even necessary to understand how Trump could become president. I'd argue the opposite is true: the emotional states of paranoia, xenophobia, fear, etc., it tends to generate in people is more likely to actively impede the needed reforms of the systems and structures of power in the U.S. I suspect this might even be the primary reason behind the create of the Russiagate conspiracy in the first place.

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    6. "Thanks for the book recommendation. Unfortunately, I've been appalled by Stephen Cohen's performances on TV, since he's a
      Putin apologist. More impressive to me has been Julia Ioffe on CNN, who panned Cohen's views."

      Sure, I get where you're coming from. I'm similarly appalled by Max Boot, by Neocons in general. That said, I don't agree with your charge of "apologist." I'm interested in Cohen's work, not Cohen the man. Unlike Boot, Cohen is an expert on the subject of Russia as well as a scholar, and succeeds (not always, but usually) in separating opinion from fact in his work. His interviews are another matter, and they tend to be more about the personalities making the arguments than the arguments themselves. Boot is mainly a polemicist, and not a very good one IMHO.

      "... but Cohen actually said to Boot on CNN that the Russian interference with the American 2016 election doesn't constitute
      an attack on the country. That's toadying for Putin and it's not respectable."

      No, I don't agree withn you here either I honestly can't find a flaw in his reasoning. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that there was "interference" by the Russian government in the U.S. electoral process. What did this Russian interference actually entail? Something like $100,000 in Facebook and Twitter ads(most of which almost nobody saw, and half of which appeared after the 2016 election.) That's it, that's the extent of the interference. There's no evidence of vote tampering, of "dark money" flooding into the country from Russia, no evidence of any Russian hacks (and Mueller had to finally admit this when he testified to congress), or of any link between Trump-Russia and WikiLeaks or of coordination or collusion between them. Cohen has the right of it here. Russiagate does not rise to the level of an attack, not under international law, or even common sense. Even if we accept the most exaggerated claims of the Russiagaters, said Russian interference might rise to the level of a minor niussance.

      In order to understand why Cohen said what he said, you have to know a bit about his personal experiences. Cohen lived through Cuban Missile Crisis (I've heard him talk about it many times), and this event left its mark on him. Since the start of Russiagate, Cohen has been one of a handful to speak out against the militaristic rhetoric of people like Boot, and for very good reason: he's afraid such rhetoric will only inflame tensions between the U.S. and Russia, and drive both countries towards a military confrontation. Nobody needs to be told that any war between the U.S. and Russia would be the greatest catastrophe in human history. Soon enough, Trump will leave office, one way or another. The greatest danger we're cronfonted with right now is this Russiagate hysteria getting beyond anyone's control. Mass hysteria is not conducive to rational thought and behavior. In such a circumstance, what was once thought only a distant possibility can become a terrible inevitability.

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    7. Your claim that there's no evidence to support the claim that "Russia interfered with the American election in support of Trump" is trolling, pure and simple, so I won't spend much time responding to it. Facebook says the ads reached around 126 million of its users. Hillary lost the election because of only 70,000 votes that went to Trump in three key states.

      What's your source of information that rivals Mueller's? Mueller and the US intelligence community concluded that Russia interfered with the US election to harm Clinton and help Trump. Who are you to say otherwise?

      I know, I know: the intelligence community also said Iraq had WMD. But that intelligence was politicized because it was conjured by the George W. Bush White House. This time, the intel is going _against_ the political grain (against the interests of the Trump administration).

      Don't forget about the Russian-organized rallies. And don't forget the Russian military's hacking of US elections computers and the DNC, and the dumping of the latter info via Wikileaks which Trump picked up on. Don't forget the spying on internal Clinton communications, via the malware that Russia implanted in her campaign's computers. And don't forget that the interference is ongoing and will likely spoil the 2020 election, giving Trump an excuse to whine that the election was rigged, if he loses.

      Delete
    8. "What's your source of information that rivals Mueller's?"

      I don't have the burden of proof here. And you know that. Or, at least, you should. First, Russiagaters have to prove Russian interference; and until they do, there's no reason to believe it. Second, the much ballyhooed "intelligence community conclusion" you're trying to pass off as evidence was based on "assessments" by hand-picked analysts. None of these published assessments contains evidence that backs up the Russiagate conspiracy.

      "Mueller and the US intelligence community concluded that Russia interfered with the US election to harm Clinton and help Trump."

      They also concluded that Saddam Hussein had an active WMD program in 2003, and had colluded with al-Qaeda to attack the U.S. on 011. I didn't believe those claims either. Why? Again, because the burden of proof is on those who are making the positive claim. They couldn't prove their clams in 2003 and Russiagaters haven't proven their claims today.

      "Who are you to say otherwise?"

      What are you arguing here? That we should simply accept claims on faith? When did asking for evidence become verboten?

      "I know, I know: the intelligence community also said Iraq had WMD. But that intelligence was politicized because it was conjured by the George W. Bush White House."

      But at the time, the WMD lie was accepted by the vast majority of the public, and the few dissenting voices were attacked as "Saddam apologists," "traitors," and so on. (Does any of this sound familiar to you?) It was only years later, after Iraq had become a quagmire, that public opinion began to change. There was more than enough information in 2003 to doubt the Bush administration's claims, but the media buried it or ignored it.

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    9. "This time, the intel is going _against_ the political grain (against the interests of the Trump administration)."

      No, you're wrong. First, the Russiagate investigation began under the Obama administration (so it wasn't "going _against_ the political grain" when it was launched). Second, we know that the top leadership of both the FBI and CIA opposed and hated the very idea of Trump as president (in other words, they DID have a motive to politicize the intelligence). Third, while the intelligence is certainly "against the interests of the Trump administration" it is not against the interests of the Democratic party establishment (coincidentally, the biggest pushers of Russiagate). In other words, your claims that it's "going _against_ the political grain" is a half truth. And fourth, the so-called "intelligence community" has a decades-long history of fabricating intelligence to suit political interests. (The list of sources for this is voluminous, a excellent place to start is William Blum's "Killing Hope.") Since the bogus WND intel was not an aberration (which you'd know if you'd actually studied the history of the CIA), this begs the question: given their record, what possible reason could anyone have to take anything the CIA says at face value? Don't we have an obligation to demand to see evidence?

      "Don't forget about the Russian-organized rallies."

      Rallies which virtually no one went to. "The IRA’s online trolls apparently succeeded in sparking protests in 2016, like several in Florida where “it’s unclear if anyone attended”; “no people showed up to at least one,” and “ragtag groups” showed up at others, including one where video footage captured a crowd of eight people. The most successful effort appears to have been in Houston, where Russian trolls allegedly organized dueling rallies pitting a dozen white supremacists against several dozen counter-protesters outside an Islamic center." The links to each case are in the article: https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-elections-interference/

      "And don't forget the Russian military's hacking of US elections computers and the DNC, and the dumping of the latter info via Wikileaks which Trump picked up on. Don't forget the spying on internal Clinton communications, via the malware that Russia implanted in her campaign's computers. And don't forget that the interference is ongoing and will likely spoil the 2020 election, giving Trump an excuse to whine that the election was rigged, if he loses."

      Um, sure. I get what you're trying to do here. It's an old debating trick, throw a bunch of unsubstantiated claims at your opponent so he gets bogged down trying to debunk each one. If you were hoping to throw me off balance with this obvious pluy, then I hate to disappoint you but I'm not going to take the bait. If you have evidence -- real evidence, not "anonymous sources" or intelligence "assessments" -- then you should present it.

      Delete
    10. "China, Russia, and Iran look like they’re gaining global control at the expense of the US, largely because Trump has no idea what he’s doing..."

      You're wrong. First, the rise of China has absolutely nothing to do with Trump, it's the result of a decades-long process of economic development. The growth of the Chinese economy was predicted to eventually overtake the U.S. economy decades ago. The idea that Trump is somehow responsible for the relative decline of the U.S. is delusional. The U.S. has been declining relative to China for decades. The chief causes of U.S. decline are well known: the imposition of neoliberal economic policies, deindustrialization (due to free trade deals and outsourcing), declining educational and health standards, crumbling infrastructure, deregulation of the financial sector (which lead directly to the 2008 collapse), a massive increase in rates of incarceration (mostly of black and poor people), a massive increase in poverty and inequality, etc. These policies were implemented largely under the Clinton administration. Did Clinton know what he was doing?

      Second,the idea that China, Russia, and Iran are "gaining global control" is nonsense. Russia and Iran don't have anywhere near the economic or military potential to do so. If the USSR couldn't do it, what makes you believe that Russia, with a tenth of the USSR's GDP, could do so? As for China, it will likely become the global hegemon, but "control" is highly implausible. No country has ever "gained global control," and it's unlikely any could. When China becomes the global superpower, it likely continue the traditional Chinese policy of foreign trade and economic development. China has traditionally not been a militarily expansionist power, and I don't see any indications this has changed.

      Delete
    11. "He’s a weapon used by American bigots and malcontents to humiliate or destroy the neoliberal establishment, ..."

      I largely agree with you here. I would also add the tens-of-millions of Americans who've seen their standards of living decline of the last four decades, who've lost their jobs due to neoliberal economic policies, etc. These are the same people who voted for Obama in 2008 because he promised them "hope and change" and delivered nothing. Americans are just as worse off today as the were before Obama. So yeah, it makes sense that people who are in desperate straits and see no way out would vote for someone like Trump who'll bring the whole rotting structure crashing down. It's perfectly understandable.

      "... and that’s perfectly consistent with him being effectively an agent (a useful idiot) of Russia, one of America’s foreign authoritarian adversaries."

      No, it's not "perfectly consistent." In fact, it's a total non-sequitor. This is an unbelievable feat of mental gymnastics. Can you explain how you've managed to connect these two statements?

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    12. "Your claim that there's no evidence to support the claim that "Russia interfered with the American election in support of Trump" is trolling, pure and simple, ..."

      So, wait, let me get this straight. What you seem to be saying is that, to your mind, asking for evidence is "trolling" because Russiagate is self-evidently true. Is this really what you're saying?

      "...so I won't spend much time responding to it."

      You have plenty of time to respond with fact-free claims and assertions, but you want me to believe that you have no time to respond with evidence and facts? Or is this a round about way of saying you haven't got any evidence to respond with?

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    13. "Regarding the Mueller report, if you’ve read it and you don’t think it contains evidence of obstruction of justice, I doubt you know what “evidence” means."

      I'm happy to hear you know what "evidence" means. Now, can you show me an example of Mueller's "evidence"? Because you've told me it's there, but haven't actually been able to show this "evidence" I've heard so much about. 'Cause I'd really like to see it.

      "Likewise, if you think the report doesn’t “substantiate” its allegations, you’re unclear on the meaning of “substantiate.”

      So, here's the problem. If you'd actually bothered to read Mueller's report and do some research to investigate what it says, rather than just reading someone else's summary, you might have stumbled upon a very unfortunate fact. Specifically Mueller's claim of being prohibited from indicting a sitting president. As this article by Martin London makes clear, "The argument that the President is immune from the criminal laws is just that — an argument." London begins with the question of whether a sitting president can be indicted, and concludes that "there is no Constitutional support for the notion [that the President] can ... immunize himself from 'Indictment, Trial, Conviction, and Punishment' for ... obstruction of justice..." Then, concerning whether a sitting president can avoid indictment while in office, London points out that "there is no language in the Constitution saying he enjoys any such protection." Curiously, Mueller cites a DOJ memo to justify his non-indictment of Trump. Problem is, the DOJ has indicted "Article I Officers" (which refer to “The President, Vice President and civil officers of the United States"). London continues: "I saw it first-hand. During the then–Vice President Spiro Agnew bribery investigation, our legal team argued on behalf of the Vice President that because he was subject to impeachment under Article II, Section 4, he was immune from criminal prosecution unless and until he had been impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. In effect, we argued that the Vice President had to be impeached and removed from office first — and then criminal charges could proceed. The Department vigorously rejected that claim. They insisted there was nothing in the Constitution that said impeachment was the exclusive remedy for crimes committed by Article I Officers: the Vice President and, by logical extension, the President could be subject to both impeachment and indictment, even if those proceedings were pursued simultaneously. Surprising no one, the Department was quick to nonetheless urge that President Nixon was immune yet Vice President Agnew was not. But that was based on derived argument — not on the hard Constitutional language that self-proclaimed “conservative” jurists insist is the only real guide to Constitutional interpretation. And the current president has certainly made clear that “conservative” judges are the only ones he will appoint."

      London concludes (and I completely agree with him): "If Special Counsel Mueller finds evidence to bring criminal charges against the sitting President, he should obtain a Grand Jury indictment and proceed. If the President wants to fight the legality of the indictment, he should do so in court — not by means of craven Congressmen publishing spurious claims about the integrity of Mueller and his team. That campaign is more than divisive. It smacks of political venality and is a threat to the architecture of our constitutional democracy."

      https://time.com/5123598/president-trump-impeach-criminal-constitution/

      Since there's no constitutional or legal reason Mueller couldn't indict Trump, we should ask ourselves why he didn't?

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    14. "Facebook says the ads reached around 126 million of its users."

      Facebook's "126 millions uses" estimate is a significant piece of evidence in favor of the Russiagate conspiracy. Until, that is, you actually look at the data. Like most Russiagate claims, Facebook's estimate turns out not to be not what Russiagaters say it is.

      https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/10/the-shaky-case-that-russia-manipulated-social-media-to-tip-the-2016-election/


      Delete
  5. "What's your source of information that rivals Mueller's? Mueller and the US intelligence community concluded that Russia interfered with the US election to harm Clinton and help Trump. Who are you to say otherwise?"

    I forgot to mention this above. Mueller was pushing the Bush administration's bogus WMD intel and the equally bogus Iraqi collusion with al-Qaeda in 2003. In other words, he was directly involved in "politicizing intelligence."

    This is from Mueller's testimony before the Select Committee on Intelligence of the US Senate:

    "As we previously briefed this Committee, Iraq's WMD program poses a clear threat to our national security, a threat that will certainly increase in the event of future military action against Iraq. Baghdad has the capability and, we presume, the will to use biological, chemical, or radiological weapons against US domestic targets in the event of a US invasion. We are also concerned about terrorist organizations with direct ties to Iraq—such as the Iranian dissident group, Mujahidin-e Khalq, and the Palestinian Abu Nidal Organization."

    "Our particular concern is that Saddam may supply al-Qaeda with biological, chemical, or radiological material before or during a war with the US to avenge the fall of his regime. Although divergent political goals limit al-Qaeda's cooperation with Iraq, northern Iraq has emerged as an increasingly important operational bases for al-Qaeda associates, and a US-Iraq war could prompt Baghdad to more directly engage al-Qaeda."

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  6. "Trump’s actions in the Middle East are just as chaotic and petty, as the third link shows."

    Were George W, Bush's "actions" in the Middle East (i.e., the illegal invasion of Iraq) chaotic and petty? The Iraq invasion destroyed the country, unleashed sectarian divisions and wars, and lead to the rise of ISIS. Not to mention the resulting power vacuum was exploited by Iran to expand its influence in the region. How about Obama? Was his invasion and destruction of Libya chaotic and petty? Or the proxy war in Syria that left millions dead or displaced? The massive influx of immigrants fleeing these devastated countries into Europe lead directly to the rise of right-wing parties throughout Europe. Trump's actions are different in degree (i.e., he makes no pretense about bringing democracy at the point of a gun) not of kind (i.e., he says outright that the U.S. should take the regions resources, which the U.S. has been doing for decades).

    “Trump apparently supports the ascendancy of a Saudi-Israeli-UAE axis and the corresponding geopolitical consequences. However, there is no indication that this is the product of careful consideration…[Siding] with the Saudi-Israeli-UAE bloc pleases the president’s political base. It overturns key aspects of his predecessor’s legacy ..."

    First, this "Saudi/Israeli/UAE azis" was formed during the Obama administration to recruit, train, arm, and finance the Jihadi terrorists in the proxy war in Syria. Second, this "axis" was not only supported by the Obama administration, but also by virtually every Democratic and Republican politician in congress. Third, both Obama and Trump have sold billions of dollars of arms to the brutal Saudi theocracy, and both supported the Saudi's genocidal war against the people of Yemen. And finally, both the Saudi arms sales and the Yemen war have received virtually unanimous bipartisan support in congress. I agree that "this is [not] the product of careful consideration." In fact, it has had and will have disastrous consequences. But putting the blame for this solely on Trump indicates a complete ignorance of recent history.

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    Replies
    1. I appreciate the effort you’ve put into these replies, but I believe it would be a waste of my time to debate you on them point by point. The disagreement here, such as it is, has more to do with general issues, so we’d be talking past each other. You don’t trust American military intelligence at all, so you’d have to see the hard evidence firsthand to accept that Russia interfered in the election. Mueller’s report cites that evidence (FBI case numbers, senate select committee testimony, etc), but obviously doesn’t present the classified materials to the public. The report contains the highly specific conclusions and even some of those are blacked out (by Trump’s henchman, Barr). Those conclusions are specific enough that they could be disproven by the media or by independent investigators who might try to look for holes in Mueller’s story, so even Mueller’s conclusions do meet at least some of his burden of proof.

      Anyway, the burden of proof principle butts up against the epistemic obligation to defer to experts. In the special case in which the experts are politicized or otherwise biased, skepticism is called for. You believe US intelligence is always or generally politicized. I doubt that’s so, especially when no special intelligence is needed because the facts are obvious (see below). George W. Bush politicized his intelligence community, because Cheney created the Office of Special Plans and stovepiped his own bogus findings to the president. The neocons’ interest in creating the pretext to invade Iraq wasn’t petty, though, unlike all of Trump’s interests, since neoconservatism is an ideology. The neocons wanted to rob Iraq and spread democracy in the Middle East. Their motives were objectionable for other reasons, but they weren’t psychotically petty and so they weren’t Trumpian.

      Similarly, I believe Kennedy faced opposition from his military, since he didn’t go along with the hawkish generals who wanted to go to war with the Soviet Union. So sometimes the deep state (Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex”) can pressure a president to do what it wants, by leaking materials to frame an issue and box in the politician.

      If the intelligence community under Obama were biased against Trump, they would have released their findings about the Russian connections _before_ the election. Instead, Comey sank Hillary Clinton’s chances by violating department guidelines and chastising her for using a private email server, days before the election. (Did the intelligence community do the same when Trump’s children likewise conducted public business on private servers? No, because such an admonition would have been lost among the trillions upon trillions of things the Trump administration has done wrong in his three years in office.)

      The findings about Russian interference in the election are diametrically opposed to the interests of Trump’s White House, so they obviously weren’t politicized in that they weren’t cooked up by politicians. Thus, the only basis for doubting them is that these findings might have been manufactured by the deep state to foment a coup against Trump. Notice here that there are still two scenarios, depending on which side is more evil than the other. In the case of Kennedy, it was the hawkish deep state that was in the wrong, since Kennedy’s reluctance to go to war with the Soviet Union might have spared the world a nuclear war. Plus, Kennedy was fit for high office, so he had democracy and expertise on his side.

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    2. By contrast, Trump is manifestly unfit to be president. In addition, as I said, no intelligence reports about Russian connections to Trump are even needed, because those connections are obvious in that they’re out in the open. Wikileaks has always been anti-American and has been infiltrated by Russian intelligence since at least Wikileaks sent Snowden to Russia for asylum. Thus, Russia could easily have exploited Wikileaks’ bias and used them as a front to dump the stolen materials from the DNC, which helped Trump. Trump approved of that activity since he publicly asked the hackers to hack and release Hillary’s emails, and he publicly encouraged Wikileaks numerous times during the campaign.

      Russian preference for Trump over Hillary is likewise obvious (i.e. public knowledge and out in the open), since as secretary of state Hillary criticized Putin’s reelection while he squared off against mass protestors who called the election rigged, threatening his hold on power until he successfully demagogued the issue by scapegoating Clinton and the Americans (see the link below). Putin despised Hillary in particular, since she’s a female politician and he’s a Neanderthalic conservative, and she happened to have taken political shots at him and threatened his status as autocrat. Also, Trump is a useful idiot of a kleptocracy like Russia, meaning Trump’s a buffoon and a wannabe alpha male who prefers authoritarian states to democracies, so he would obviously be better for Putin than would a competent neoliberal like Hillary Clinton. Plus, Trump is financially beholden to Russia in particular, as his biographers pointed out before he became president.

      What this means is that even were the deep state to have manufactured bogus evidence against Trump, the deep state could still have been in the right in doing so! The American deep state could be patriotically protecting the country and the world from an ignorant, reckless, mentally ill con artist of a pseudopresident. As I said, it would be like a cop arresting an African-American for “driving while black”—except that the motive would be patriotism rather than racism. Trump _deserves_ to be forcibly removed from office. (Mind you, that would likely spark riots or a civil war, in which case we’d have to consider whether Trump’s more deplorable supporters _ought_ to be militarily defeated to end the primary Civil War once and for all.)

      For those reasons, the details of Mueller’s evidence don’t interest me much. My position happens to be supported by an embarrassment of riches. First, no official investigation into the Russian connections is needed in the first place, because the connections are out in the open and common knowledge. So commonsense indicates that Russia interfered with the election in favour of Trump. Second, the investigation wasn’t politically tainted, since it goes _against_ Trump and thus wasn’t produced by his administration for political reasons. Prior to his election, Comey went against Hillary, not Trump, while Obama the sissy liberal kept his mouth shut. Third, as much as Mueller has the burden of proof, there’s also the need for laypeople to defer to experts except in extreme cases of bias on the part of those experts. Fourth, even if Mueller’s findings were concocted by the deep state to oust Trump, I’d be OK with that since Trump’s obviously unfit to be president, and were Trump to get his comeuppance in that spectacular fashion, that would restore faith in humanity on the part of people of good will everywhere.

      It’s none of my business, of course, since I’m not an American. But those are the general reasons why I’m not going to get into the weeds with you on the details of the evidence. I’ve got other things I’d rather be writing and thinking about.

      https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/clinton-putin-226153

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    3. "You don’t trust American military intelligence at all, ..."

      Not exactly. I don't believe anything they say should be taken at face value.

      "... so you’d have to see the hard evidence ..."

      I'd need to see the evidence. Yes.

      "Mueller’s report cites that evidence (FBI case numbers, senate select committee testimony, etc), but obviously doesn’t present the classified materials to the public. The report contains the highly specific conclusions and even some of those are blacked out (by Trump’s henchman, Barr)."

      That's right. On the core issue of collusion, there's no evidence in the Mueller report.

      "Those conclusions are specific enough that they could be disproven by the media or by independent investigators who might try to look for holes in Mueller’s story, ..."

      Yes, correct. Here's an article by Aaron Mate that disproves many of Mueller's specific conclusions: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/can-black-people-trust-hillary_b_9312004

      "...so even Mueller’s conclusions do meet at least some of his burden of proof."

      No, they don't. See the link above.

      "Anyway, the burden of proof principle butts up against the epistemic obligation to defer to experts. In the special case in which the experts are politicized or otherwise biased, skepticism is called for."

      Correct. Mueller has a well-documented history of politicizing intelligence. See above, Mueller's 2003 testimony to congress.

      There's also evidence that, after 911, Mueller "manufactured terrorists" by paying informants to infiltrate Mosques, and entrap Muslims. Hundreds were prosecuted, only a handful were actual terrorists. See "The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism," by Trevor Aaronson.

      "You believe US intelligence is always or generally politicized."

      No, the CIA has a long history of politicizing intelligence, lies, deceptions, etc., but I can't claim that this is "always" or even "generally" true. It's been so often enough true, however, that we should be skeptical of it's claims.

      "I doubt that’s so, ..."

      Correct, your claim above is indeed false.

      "... especially when no special intelligence is needed because the facts are obvious (see below). George W. Bush politicized his intelligence community, ..."

      You keep trying to present the 2003 WMD hoax as some kind of aberration. But as I've already told you, I've studied the history of the CIA, so what you're trying to do right here is not going to work on me. I can cite at least a dozen other examples since the 1950s just off the top of my head.

      There's CIA director Leon Panetta admitting that CIA officials lied to congress from 2001 to 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8143081.stm

      And then there's the time the CIA spied on the Senate in 2014, and lied about it when they were accused of doing it. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief-history-of-the-cias-unpunished-spying-on-the-senate/384003/

      One of my favorites is, of course, the Church Committee Hearings, which exposed many of the CIA's more infamous operations such as MKULTRA, COINTELPRO, and so on, and on. You can read all 14 volumes of the Church Committees findings here: https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1014

      If you need more evidence, don't hesitate to ask, there's plenty more.

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    4. Unlike progressives, including the comedians on Saturday Night Live who wrongly predicted Mueller would destroy Trump, I haven’t glorified Mueller. On the contrary, I said he’s a partner in crime with Trump. But you think he’s dirty for a different reason. Like Maher, I don’t think Mueller went far enough in digging up dirt on Trump. You’re more inclined to think he manufactured evidence against Trump, like he did against Saddam for Bush Jr.

      I’m aware that Mueller’s a Republican (like most members of the military and intelligence community), and that the CIA has a third reason to lie. The first two, as I said, are politicization by White House control, while the second is the opposite: to control the White House or even to foment a coup against the sitting president. The third kind of CIA or FBI lie to Americans, of course, is to protect the intelligence community from embarrassment or to cover up their crimes.

      So I wouldn’t be too surprised to learn that the Russian interference in the election was actually a CIA false flag operation. But I don’t think that’s as likely as the Russia-centered alternative. First of all, where’s the evidence that the US military under Obama (!) hacked the DNC to benefit Trump? That’s asinine. Or was that just a random hacker who stole the DNC materials and leaked them to Wikileaks, as Trump said? That scenario would entail that Trump said something accurate (“somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds”), which is preposterous. And how to explain all the folks with ties to Russia in Trump’s campaign? How to explain his strange deference to Putin after the election? What about Trump’s financial ties to Russia which long predate his running for office? How to explain Putin’s contempt for Hillary and his obvious preference for Trump?

      You linked to the wrong Mate article, by the way, but I found some anti-Mueller Nation articles by him. One thing I noticed in his criticisms of Mueller is that he says there’s no evidence of Kremlin involvement in the election interference, since none of the alleged Russian conspirators work directly for Putin. That’s a foolish thing to say, though, since Russia’s an oligarchy, not a free market society (see link below). As in China, where the corporations work together with the Chinese government, in Russia there’s no such thing as private property. Those predatory oligarchs who attempted to exercise their liberty in opposition to the government were imprisoned when Putin became the leader. So Mate seems to be looking at Russia through America-tinted glasses. Putin doesn’t have to be directly involved in the conspiracy. It’s called “organized crime” (state corporatism, state-private co-partnership, or kleptocracy), like the mob. If you go against the mob, it’s implied that you’ll be in big trouble. If you help out the mafia, you’re rewarded or at least left alone.

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    5. Anyway, suppose your burden of proof is met and it turns out that the US or someone other than Russia was responsible for the election interference. Suppose it was a (bizarrely self-destructive) American deep state operation to favour Trump and hurt Hillary. Or suppose at least that Mueller’s report is meant to cover up a nothing burger: there was no Russian attack on the American election and there’s no ongoing cyber threat from Russia. If that’s true and evidence of it came out, Trump would have a field day in scapegoating the Democrats and the American deep state for having vilified Trump. Trump would be martyred and would gain more dictatorial power. Given Trump’s obvious malevolence, how would that benefit America?

      By contrast, suppose the American deep state is exaggerating the evidence of the Russian connection, to weaken Trump. Wouldn’t that be the patriotic thing to do, since again Trump is obviously a malignant entity and a blight on the nation? (I say “entity” because his malignant narcissism makes him subpersonal.) Trump himself poses a great threat to American national security. Of course, as Thomas Frank would say, Trump and the anti-Americanism he represents are only confused responses to the greatest national security threat, that being the American neoliberal plutocracy, including, for example, the fossil fuel industry which appears now to have known about its negative impact on the environment as far back as the 1960s but covered up those studies (see the link below).

      In short, I don’t see the point of your arguments. A die-hard Trump fan would be expected to lay all the blame on Democrats and Mueller, sparing Trump and Russia, since that fan is “conservative,” meaning authoritarian and culturally un-American. But if, as you said, you’re not a Trump fan, what is the point of your anti-Mueller harangues? What is your bottom line? Matt Taibbi uses his skepticism of the Russian interference to criticize the US media. That makes his arguments susceptible of falling into Trump’s “fake news” screed. But the US media certainly deserve criticism for their coverage of Trump. Still, I’m not sure what you think you’re arguing against in commenting at such length on these satires of mine.

      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405473916300034

      https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

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    6. "Russian preference for Trump over Hillary is likewise obvious (i.e. public knowledge and out in the open)..."

      Correct. What was also "public knowledge and out in the open" was Putin's preference for Obama in 2008. Should we start investigating Obama now too for nefarious Russian ties? That Putin preferred Trump to Clinton is, again, beside the point. Putin's animosity toward Hillary Clinton is no more evidence of the Russiagate conspiracy than Putin's animosity to Mitt Rommey in 2008 is evidence of a conspiracy between Putin and Obama.

      Delete
    7. "Unlike progressives, including the comedians on Saturday Night Live who wrongly predicted Mueller would destroy Trump, I haven’t glorified Mueller. On the contrary, I said he’s a partner in crime with Trump."

      Well, with friends like these...

      "But you think he’s dirty for a different reason."

      As I said previously, I think he's a liar (WMDs in 2003) and unscrupulous (entrapment and prosecution of innocent Muslims), and therefore untrustworthy. (And these are just a couple of the more well-known examples of Mueller's ethical lapses.)

      "Like Maher, I don’t think Mueller went far enough in digging up dirt on Trump."

      While I don't want to get to deep into this here, there are very serious ethical and legal implications here (which I don't expect a blithering moron like Maher to be able to grasp). Specifically, it involves the issue of open-ended investigations. What Maher is advocating here is that the state should have the power to investigate every aspect of a person's life regardless of whether a crime was committed or not. In other words, Maher wanted Mueller to go on a "fishing expedition" to look for crimes that Trump might have committed in order to than be able to indict him. This isn't what police are supposed to do. And its exactly what happened in the Clinton impeachment (which I completely was opposed to). It started as an investigation into Whitewater, and when Starr couldn't find any evidence of a crime, he went "fishing" to try to dig up anything he could to use against Clinton. In the end, the only thing he could get Clinton on, after years of investigations, was Clinton obstructing justice (lying under oath) while testifying about having "sexual relations with that woman." That's what Maher is advocating. And it's why he's a complete imbecile.

      "You’re more inclined to think he manufactured evidence against Trump, like he did against Saddam for Bush Jr."

      I don't think I ever said Mueller "manufactured evidence" of WMDs. If I did then I misspoke. Mueller pushed the Bush administration's bogus intelligence which was manufactured for political ends.

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    8. "You linked to the wrong Mate article, by the way, but I found some anti-Mueller Nation articles by him.

      Oops, my bad.

      "One thing I noticed in his criticisms of Mueller is that he says there’s no evidence of Kremlin involvement in the election interference, since none of the alleged Russian conspirators work directly for Putin."

      I'm not sure what you're referring to specifically, but it probably has to do with the Internet Research Agency indictment case. Mueller had to admit in court that there was no evidence of a link between the IRA and the Russian government. From the article:

      “Yet Mueller’s team has been forced to admit in court that this was a false insinuation. Earlier this month, a federal judge rebuked Mueller and the Justice Department for having ‘improperly suggested a link’ between IRA and the Kremlin. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich noted that Mueller’s February 2018 indictment of the IRA ‘does not link the [IRA] to the Russian government’ and alleges ‘only private conduct by private actors.’”

      https://www.thenation.com/article/questions-mueller-russiagate/

      In a sane world, this would immediately discredit this particular aspect of Russiagate. But, unfortunately, we live in an insane world.

      Speaking of insane...

      "That’s a foolish thing to say, though, since Russia’s an oligarchy, not a free market society (see link below). As in China, where the corporations work together with the Chinese government, in Russia there’s no such thing as private property. Those predatory oligarchs who attempted to exercise their liberty in opposition to the government were imprisoned when Putin became the leader. So Mate seems to be looking at Russia through America-tinted glasses. Putin doesn’t have to be directly involved in the conspiracy. It’s called “organized crime” (state corporatism, state-private co-partnership, or kleptocracy), like the mob. If you go against the mob, it’s implied that you’ll be in big trouble. If you help out the mafia, you’re rewarded or at least left alone."

      I don't even know what to say to this... I just don't...

      Y'know, when discussing religion, I like to say that it's not the case that religious people are stupid, it's that religion makes them stupid. What you just wrote here, you should take as a early warning sign that Russiagate is making you stupid. I won't ask you where you got this from, because I've heard plenty of Russiagaters on tv and the internet say almost the exact same thing. Every single one of them was an idiot. None were experts in Russian politics, history, culture, etc. I would be shocked if any of them could answer even basic questions about Russia. And I'm fairly certain, they were taking out their ass. Look, we all steal ideas from other people, everybody does it. So if you're gonna steal, steal from the best. What you're doing is you're stealing really dumb ideas from really dumb people.

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    9. Of course Putin preferred Obama to McCain, since the latter was an old-school warmonger whereas Obama was a sissy liberal. Putin's preferences go to motive, as in motive, means, and opportunity, the three elements of a crime.

      Obama didn't need ties to the Russian underworld, because he wasn't a psychopathic grifter like Trump who will take a bailout whenever he can get one. Obama won against McCain because Americans wanted to take a shower after the fiasco of George W. Bush's time in office, just like most Americans will want to take a shower after Trump's first term. That's what Republicans are good for now: giving the country a hateful fake leader who distracts with his hypocrisy while he benefits the rich minority at the expense of the poor.

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    10. The Republicans were wrong to try to take down Bill Clinton, because Clinton was an able politician who could actually perform his duties as president, not an bumbling villain and menace like Trump. They found nothing untoward in Bill Clinton, because the Republicans had only bought into their own hype and demonizations. These were the right-wing religious fanatics and Machiavellians who had no business attempting to discern what's fact and what's fiction. Those Gingrich-led Republicans were interested only in pandering to sanctimonious American bigots to empower themselves to deregulate the economy and benefit the top one percent at the expense of the gullible masses.

      By contrast, if you had free rein to investigate Trump, you'd find that he committed many crimes and is wildly unfit to be president. So how does the pitiful impeachment of Clinton help your case, let alone prove Bill Maher is an imbecile for encouraging the patriotic elimination of Trump for the good of humanity? Your legalistic prohibition of open-ended investigations seems positively Muellerian for missing the forest for the trees.

      As I said, if there are African-Americans languishing in prison for having committed the non-crime of driving while black, there sure as hell can be a coup against Trump based on his obvious, out-in-the-open crimes and evils. That's all just theoretical, though, since it's down to the 2020 election. The Democrats don't know how to do politics, so they had no chance of impeaching Trump.

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    11. Show me the transcript of Mueller admitting in court there’s no connection between the IRA and the Russian government.

      All that happened there is that the judge ordered Mueller not to prejudice his case against the IRA-related businesses, since his indictment of them doesn’t go into the connections with the Russian government, whereas Mueller’s report and his other public statements do make that allegation. This is a case of further Russian trolling of the US government (see the first link below), since no one expected the IRA to bother defending itself in court. Part of the IRA did so only to bait Mueller into revealing his classified evidence, including, presumably, his evidence that the IRA worked on behalf of Putin. From Politico: “the move [i.e. Concord Management’s remote defense of itself in American court] appeared to be a bid to force Mueller’s team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information.”

      Prosecutors get to choose what they want to argue in court. They don’t have to pursue all possible charges against the defendant. They can focus on whatever wrongdoings they like that they believe occurred, depending either on the strength of the evidence or, in this case, on whether they want to declassify certain evidence or reveal their sources and methods. So the fact that Mueller’s indictment of IRA doesn’t speak to the Russian connections hardly means Mueller doesn’t believe those connections exist.

      And yeah, the IRA works indirectly for the Russian government, because as I said, Russia is an oligarchy in which _all_ of the big Russian businesses work in partnership with the Kremlin. More specifically, as the ODNI assessment said, “The likely financier of the so-called Internet Research Agency of professional trolls located in Saint Petersburg is a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence” (second link below). As has been widely reported, that likely financier is Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef.”

      On Putin’s government as a crony capitalistic oligarchy, see Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?, by Karen Dawisha. She says that “under the Putin plan, the state would be strengthened not by breaking up the oligarchic system per se but by transforming an oligarchy independent of and more powerful than the state into a corporatist structure in which oligarchs served at the pleasure of state officials, who themselves gained and exercised economic control over these structures, both for the state and for themselves.”

      Moreover, she says, “Instead of seeing Russian politics as an inchoate democratic system being pulled down by history, accidental autocrats, popular inertia, bureaucratic incompetence, or poor Western advice, I conclude that from the beginning Putin and his circle sought to create an authoritarian regime ruled by a close-knit cabal with embedded interests, plans, and capabilities, who used democracy for decoration rather than direction.”

      https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/04/mueller-russia-interference-election-case-delay-570627

      https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Assessing_Russian_Activities_and_Intentions_in_Recent_US_Elections/Assessment#campaign

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  7. "In short, I don’t see the point of your arguments. A die-hard Trump fan would be expected to lay all the blame on Democrats and Mueller, sparing Trump and Russia, since that fan is “conservative,” meaning authoritarian and culturally un-American."

    I'm not a conservative, nor am I a liberal. If anything, I'm probably closest to anarchism.

    "But if, as you said, you’re not a Trump fan, what is the point of your anti-Mueller harangues? What is your bottom line?"

    I value truth.

    "Still, I’m not sure what you think you’re arguing against in commenting at such length on these satires of mine."

    I've been coming here and reading your stuff for a couple years now. You seem like a really smart guy. And that's the problem. Your Russiagate stuff stands out to me like a sore thumb in comparison to your other writings. I'm just trying to understand how you could be so smart and still come to believe in Russiagate. All I got so far is you believe it because you believe it.

    Look, if it's making you uncomfortable, just let me know and I'll stop.

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    1. I was trying to get a sense of where this question of Russia’s interference in Trump’s election fits into your worldview. Why does it matter so much to you, that you’d bother to go against both commonsense and the consensus view of the experts, which is that Russia did indeed interfere in the election?

      Of course, my blog goes against lots of consensus opinions, but that’s in the field of philosophy, which is as much an art as it is a science. I defer to experts on empirical questions, which is why I strive to keep my philosophy naturalistic. Only in cases of apparent pseudoscience (as in psychiatry, economics, or wellness studies) or where I have some expertise do I feel free to challenge or ignore the empirical consensus of experts. One main reason for that deference is that I don’t have endless time to master every subject and study every little issue for myself.

      You say you’re neither liberal nor conservative, but are something of an anarchist, and you’ve emphasized how little you trust in the public statements of US military intelligence officials. Plus, you’ve been reading my rather subversive blog. But I wonder what your views are on Russia, in particular. Do you have a Russian background, for example?

      Anyway, thanks for the exchange of ideas on the subject. I’m unable entirely to trust your judgment on it, since you recommended Aaron Mate, whereas he’s apparently unaware that Russia’s a crony capitalistic kleptocracy. Mate wrote, ‘To borrow a phrase from Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen, when it comes to the core question of contacts between Trump and the Russian government, we are left with a “Russiagate without Russia.” Instead we have a series of interactions where Trump associates speak with Russian nationals, people with ties to Russian nationals, or people who claim to have ties to the Russian government. But none of these “links,” “ties,” or associations ever entail a member of the Trump campaign interacting with a Kremlin intermediary.’ And in another article, he kept up with the same line of argument: “None of the characters presented to us as Russian “agents” or Trump-Kremlin “intermediaries” were shown to be anything of the sort.”

      The fact that he’s insisting on direct Kremlin involvement shows he doesn’t know literally the first thing about how Russia works (i.e. about the private-public partnership in that kleptocracy).

      Even more egregiously, Mate lied outright about Mueller since he said regarding whether ‘the IRA was a part of the Russian government’s “sweeping and systematic” interference campaign,’ that “Mueller’s team has been forced to admit in court that this was a false insinuation.” That’s a scurrilous misrepresentation, as I explained. The fact that the Russian government oversight of the election interference was irrelevant to the charges laid against the hackers at IRA doesn’t mean there were no such connections to Putin and the Kremlin.

      I’d recommend that you be more careful in choosing your sources of information, especially if you’re going to challenge an authoritative, consensus viewpoint.

      https://www.thenation.com/article/questions-mueller-russiagate/

      https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-trump-mueller-report-no-collusion/

      https://www.thenation.com/article/rip-russiagate/

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  8. Biden and his son were money laundering in the Ukraine. Good Lord I am so happy you ignorant wretches are miserable.

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    1. Even if that were true, is that supposed to make Biden as bad as Trump?

      Do you honestly believe I'm ignorant compared to you? Can you show me your body of work so I can judge for myself? What degrees have you attained? Where are your writings at so that I can be impressed by the depth of your knowledge?

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