The special counsel has found insufficient evidence to show that any Americans (Republicans included) cooperated or conspired with Russians in their interference campaign against the 2016 Presidential election despite multiple approaches by Russian agents. There is the issue of Manafort’s sharing of private polling data developed by the Republican party with a suspected Russian agent, Konstantin Kilimnik. It is possible that Manafort passed additional information, but this apparently wasn’t developed despite the massive amount of investigative activity that Mueller led.
We may ask, from a practical point of view, whether the Republican Party or the individual presidential campaign needed to actually do anything for the Russian interference program to succeed. In fact, it would be better (for deniability purposes) if there was little or no contact between the Russians and the campaign they intended to benefit. The polling data would be one of the few things that the Russians needed to target their internet disinformation campaign to swing districts where it could be most helpful.
Thus, the target of the Mueller investigation may be “innocent” in the sense that they didn’t have to do anything to get the benefits of the Russian program. This makes the issue of obstruction much clearer. Numerous people lied about their contacts with Russians because they realized that the campaign was “guilty” of allowing the Russians to interfere, and then offering them favors “if elected”.
If the Republicans were ethical and really offended by the Russian activity, they would have denounced it when it was first discovered. In fact, they said nothing, and when they were confronted with the conclusions of the intelligence agencies they belittled them. This is guilty behavior, and there doesn’t have to be any “there” there for them all to be conspiring to accept Russian assistance.
We can only hope that other Justice Department or state prosecutors will be more aggressive in their pursuit of wrongdoing by he who must not be named. Otherwise, we will be in for a very bad time over the next few years.
Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), there are early signs of a gathering recession over the next eighteen to thirty months. One early sign is the fact that 90-day Treasury bills get a higher interest yield than 10-year bills, an anomaly that shows that there is more demand for the long-term securities than usual– and more than the system normally accommodates.
Other signs, like a collapse in hiring, may already be here. The last recession was ten years ago, a relatively long time, even though it seems like some things never got better after that.
If there is a recession before the 2020 election, the incumbent is likely to be overturned. So there is that tiny ray of light/hope.
(image courtesy of pixabay.com)
Believe or not, Devin Nunes is suing Twitter and the anonymous owners of the handles DevinNunesMom and NunesCow, as well as Elizabeth Mair, for $250 million in damages, primarily for defamation of character, as well as “shadow banning”.
It seems that the owners of these parody accounts have been saying mean things about Devin, and he’s hurt.
There is some method to this madness, namely there is considerable harassment value for Mr. Nunes in forcing individuals (and they are numerous) to respond to these frivolous lawsuits and many more that he plans to file. There is expense involved in responding to a civil lawsuit, no matter how frivolous; if you don’t respond, you risk a default judgement against you and attachment of your assets.
What is more, this is all of a piece with the comments last weekend of he who must not be named with respect to Saturday Night Live. Both deranged politicians think that satire and parody are going too far. The threats against SNL were so much hot air, but they reveal the attitude of these politicians– anybody who criticizes them is bad and deserves punishment from the government.
John McCain had his faults, but one thing he did we should all be proud of: he spearheaded reconciliation with Vietnam. He has been dead now for seven months. He who must not be named has latched on to a conspiracy theory about him which is both false and absurd. The fact is that he was given a copy of the notorious Steele dossier AFTER the 2016 election. He did not know that the FBI already had a copy, and he was so alarmed by the allegations in it that he wasted no time in making sure they had one. But by then it was too late– contrary to *his conspiracy theory. If only this Steele dossier had been publicized BEFORE the election.
The unfortunate fact is that, even though the Democratic National Committee was paying for Steele’s work, its results were never communicated to the people in the campaign who could have publicized it, say in campaign commercials on TV… a fatal mistake, and a classic example of how organizations sometimes malfunction.
(photo of John McCain courtesy of pixabay.com and DaveDavidsoncom)
The Russian Parliament has passed, and Putin has signed, a new law that prohibits dissemination of any information that “exhibits blatant disrespect for the society, government, official government symbols, constitution or governmental bodies of Russia.”
In the case of such items on the internet, the Russian prosecutor will have the power to immediately block the offending communication before criminal proceedings are pursued. So the censorship will be much more efficient without the need for court review.
This is the most blatant censorship legislation on offer today. Even before this legislation was signed into law, the authorities have unofficially punished anyone who has made offending statements anyway. But the law makes it much easier to justify doing so in public.
Those who think that we can be friends with the Russian government should think twice. The opposition to the Russian government has been rendered completely voiceless with this law. There is no way to have an honest relationship with a government that muzzles its people. No-one can believe their denials of malign activity.
This quote comes from her column about *him getting more irrational and the Republican’s excuses for him getting more and more lame.
Here is the whole paragraph, with apologies for the use of the word, “Drumpf”:
There is no moral or intellectual reason that will persuade them. There is no respectful conversation to be had with people who argue in bad faith. The only solution is to defeat Trump and his party so thoroughly that Trumpism is permanently discredited. A party that continues to defend this president is simply beyond redemption.
Ms. Rubin was a well-known conservative columnist before what’s-his-name got elected emperor-in-his-mind; since the election, she has become obsessed with just how awful *he really is.
Here is what Bill “Slightly Dangerous” Kristol said on Titwer:
To Republicans who’ve been inclined to acquiesce in a Trump re-nomination in 2020: Read his tweets this morning. Think seriously about his mental condition and psychological state. Then tell me you’re fine with him as president of the United States for an additional four years. –6:56 AM Mar 17, 2019
Laymen and even non-psychiatric physicians might think that the best way to evaluate a person’s mental health would be through a personal interview with the patient himself or herself. That would be true in the case of a physical illness, but unfortunately, due to the very nature of a psychiatric illness, personal interviews are fraught with misperceptions and even personal risk.
Here is a quote from an article in Salon by Chauncey DeVega:
“The best way to evaluate a person’s mental health is not through a personal interview or self-assessment. Instead it is through speaking with friends, family members and other close colleagues that mental health professionals are best able to assess a given person’s mental health.”
Chauncey alleges that Michael Cohen should fear for his personal safety based on *His mental aberrations and behavior.
In the Salon article, Chauncey interviews Dr. Justin Frank, a psychiatrist with more than 40 years of experience; Dr. Frank has written books on the psychology of President Bush, President Obama, and most recently, President *He who must not be named.
Dr. Frank described Michael Cohen’s public testimony before the House as highly believable, entirely within *His character– so there’s no shocking revelations about Cohen or the *president, it’s all exactly as we would expect.
He who must not be named made a speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) annual convention recently. It was long, for him; two hours and ten minutes. It was wide-ranging, covering many topics and returning to many of his favorite themes. “It was also a delusional, nightmarish monologue, full of lies and violent images, manifestly the work of someone who lives in his own reality.” Not to repeat any of his claims here is a mercy to my readers. To conclude, however, what he said makes clear that he is disconnected from objective reality.
(cartoon courtesy of pixabay.com and Conmongt)
According to an article in this month’s Forbes magazine, He to whom all money flows has a 30% (minority) ownership interest in two commercial properties, 2.1 million square feet of office space, part in San Francisco and part in central New York, 1290 Avenue of the Americas. He is quoted in the article as saying he received a check for $125 million for his ownership interest (possibly in 2015). He has no control over the buildings, and they have undergone extensive renovation in recent years in successful effort to get higher-paying tenants. However, buildings with the actual name of he who must not be named on them have done considerably less well, and have declined in value the last two years.
The nature of these treasure-stores of rent is that he need not do anything at all to receive the money annually, just sign the deposit slips at his bank. In fact, these properties are most of his wealth, being overwhelmingly larger than his golf courses or other brands. Apparently he was forced by poor business decisions to give up majority control over real estate, meaning he would get a big check but have no control over the property.
A number of large developments with the family name of he who must not be named have successfully gone to court in the last two years to have the name removed from their facades– partly due to poor publicity, and partly due to poor behavior.
It is likely that, in order to gain control over him, the Russians would have needed to shift hundreds of millions of dollars his way. One way of doing this, apparently, was to purchase apartments in his developments for inflated prices, say $5 million for a single apartment. On the other hand, large real estate assets, like a 50 acre country estate, could go for nearer a hundred million dollars– and the price could be easily inflated to two hundred million without raising suspicion.
Conrad Theodore Seitz 