Trump's Card

[Ginger Yellow]

It's multiple "things" (at least potentially). It's pretty incontrovertible that Russia (or private agents acting on Russia's behalf) "hacked" the DNC's email and leaked it (I believe it's the case that the FBI believes they compromised the RNC too but didn't leak it, but I might be wrong on that).

There is also some evidence that they compromised various electoral registers, though there's no evidence I've seen that that affected anyone's votes. Any changes made were caught and rectified, it's been reported.

Then there's the collusion question. Did Trump, or his campaign, directly conspire with "the Russians" on any of this, or other campaign activities. I've always been skeptical about that myself, but it's becoming more likely and all these undisclosed conversations are looking more and more dodgy (even beyond the inherently dodgy Flynn, Manafort and Page, which is were I thought any fire might be). Don Jr's now basically said that he tried to collude (in response to an email explicitly talking about Russian government support), but claims his interlocutor only wanted to talk about easing sanctions. There's an argument made that this in itself is a violation of campaign finance laws, but I don't profess to know whether that would stand up. Still, soliciting opposition research from agents of a foreign government certainly seems legally as well as ethically iffy.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Jill Stein reckons Russia is a "conspiracy theory". And her deputy was opining the other day that the most racist countries in the world were "America, Israel and France". Someone BTL said "and Britain fourth".

The Democrats aren't very left wing, so why can't the Greens do better than these?

[anton pulisov]

The Democrats are not really homogeneous though, they are a huge coalition. Somebody like Al Franken is fairly left wing.

But money in politics has meant that the third way centrists have a lot of power within the Democratic party.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I get that, but I'm surprised that there aren't more left people who think they're wasting their time and join the Greens.

[ursus arctos]

Why?

They have no local organisation at all. They didn't even run candidates in 430 of the 435 Congressional constituencies last time.

In their entire history, they have elected four state representatives, two of whom changed their affiliation soon after entering office.

[Etienne]

Because the electoral system.

It's easier just to disengage, which is what millions of people have done.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

A couple of members of the Irish green party I spoke to about the subject have a very very dim view of Jill Stein, citing her as a representative of a tendency that they spend most of their time fighting against. I get the impression that Jill stein is in the Green party because she has the critical faculties of a sheep.

[San Bernardhinault]

I don't see the deal with the Russia thing. If the Russians hacked the election, then that's obviously a huge problem. But where's the evidence of that?

But if it boils down to some Russians whispering in Trump's ear, then he has done nothing illegal. Unless they have financed his campaign, which would be illegal under US election law. Foreigners can't fund US candidates.

So if all he's done is talked to Russians, then they are going have to get him for lying, in a 'I lied about having oral sex in the Oval Office' kind of way. That's only going to pump more poison into the well.

There are a couple of things - the Russians appeared to want to cast into doubt the entire legitimacy of the electoral process just by throwing things into chaos. They appear to have thrown things into chaos, but not succeeded in damaging the perceived legitimacy. This isn't much to do with Trump.

But they have also been working Trump in particular for a fairly extended period. That's partly because Putin had particular animosity towards Clinton, and partly (this is more of a guess) because they thought that - in the unlikely event he won - he could help with easing sanctions, and helping their money launderers, and damaging Ukraine, and weakening NATO in eastern Europe, and all that kind of stuff. They didn't really expect it to work, so mostly it was an attempt to delegitimise Clinton rather than to get Trump to win. Trump winning was them hitting a very long-odds jackpot given that they were working him before the Republican Primary started.

As others said - it doesn't matter if it's illegal. It matters that it's massively damaging to democracy and to the country, and is why presidents can get impeached for stuff that's technically within the law.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Trump is going to West Virginia, by all accounts to embarrass Shelley Moore Capito for opposing the latest healthcare nonsense. And Mike Pence has been to Ohio to do the same with Rob Portman.

Is this likely to work? Isn't "I stand up to Trump" quite a good card for a Republican like them?

[caja-dglh]

Any guy in his mid-30s who does his hair like Kushner is either a villain or a detestable human being.

[Satchmo Distel]

I hope the senators are going to push Kushner on why he went to the meeting if he wasn't looking for a collaboration.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I came across an article a week or so that highlighted this case.

I also remember how very angry that Indian-Amercian ADA from New York was to be fired from this case. this could get phenomenally dirty. This court case was part of something that was very important to anti-Russians on both sides of the senate.

[ursus arctos]

My classmate was not an ADA (though there's were/are). He was The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

[Tubby Isaacs]

One of my classmates starred in This Life.

[Tubby Isaacs]

BBC2's hit drama series about the life and loves of a group of twenty-something lawyers sharing a house in London.

Actually, you win.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

hah, it's hard to keep track of everyone who disappeared muttering into the background with a serious axe to grind. I can't imagine that there's a better way to create an entire cadre of enemies than by shitting on a whole heap of ultra high achieving career people for highly dubious reasons. I've no doubt that a lot of people expected to be replaced because they were political appointments, but to get rid of them in order to shut down what they were doing, and to set their life's work to aught because you're a crook....

[Tubby Isaacs]

Now you mention it, I haven't seen Jack in much lately.

[Sits]

Embarrass him by mentioning Smash. Mrs. S has the DVDs.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I had no idea he was doing rather well over there. Like Hanson Plc in that old advert.

[WOM]

A nice compilation of Trump's topics and comments when addressing a field full of Boy Scouts yesterday.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2...oy-scouts.html

[Flynnie]

Why?

They have no local organisation at all. They didn't even run candidates in 430 of the 435 Congressional constituencies last time.

In their entire history, they have elected four state representatives, two of whom changed their affiliation soon after entering office.

My favourite "The Greens are useless" story is locally, where Matt Gonzalez nearly defeated likely next Governor of California Gavin Newsom in the 2003 San Francisco mayoral race, then decided not to run for re-election to Board of Supervisors and left politics altogether.

Guy nearly pulls off what would be the biggest win in the history of US Green politics by a factor of a billion, ergo should have a platform to push forward left-green politics in SF and put other Greens/lefty Dems (he got a surprising amount of endorsements from local Dems; Newsom was never popular locally) in office. Instead? Nothing.

[MsD]

Another flurry of crazy tweets this morning.

[Ginger Yellow]

All based on watching Hannity, it seems. It's so ridiculous. I realised we were getting a Fox News grandpa for a president, but it beggars belief that he is still being a Fox News grandpa, when he has the entire machinery of the executive branch at his fingertips. You don't need to watch TV to find out what's going on, Donnie.

It also make me think we dodged a huge bullet with the Ailes and others scandals. If he was still in charge and Fox wasn't isn't such disarray, they could be doing so much damage right now, basically dictating policy to the president. I mean, they're still doing a ton of damage, but that was basically Ailes's dream.

[Satchmo Distel]

For all Nixon's faults, he tended to stay loyal to his inner circle of conspirators. Trump seems more cowardly or just insane in being willing to throw any confidante under the bus. Eventually one of these spurned criminals must fuck him over.

[ursus arctos]

He's saying stuff in public that is significantly worse than what Nixon said during his blackest paranoid drunks.