TWGB: The Truth Still Matters

The funny thing about Trump ally Roger Stone being sentenced to 40 months in prison, which falls short of the original sentencing request from the DOJ prosecutors, which was later amended to a lighter sentence request, which lead to the resignation from the trial of some of the prosecutors, which was followed by today's prosecution team offering the original guidelines (did you keep all that straight?)--is that Judge Berman Jackson was probably going to go with 40 months anyway. All that foofaraw was...unnecessary? The judge was always going to take multiple factors into account. Stone certainly didn't help himself by flouting the limits of the gag order regarding the trial, etc., but in the end, the sentencing wasn't abusive.

Of course, Trump can decide to pardon Stone. What he can't really do, though, is fully exonerate him.  A pardon would relieve Stone of the penalty he was sentenced to, but doesn't erase that he was tried and found guilty in a court of law, that the evidence was actually against him, and would only serve to highlight part of what the judge said at sentencing:

"He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the President. He was prosecuted for covering up for the President."

 A pardon might be considered something the president has as part of his executive power, but to use it as part of a pattern of corrupt behavior, such as obstruction of justice regarding investigations into himself or related parties of interest is a clear abuse. It shouldn't be used to undermine the judiciary, or to serve as a bribe to encourage acts of obstruction or other violations of the law.

Which is relevant because in other recent news, it was confirmed by former Rep. Dana Rohrabacher that he went to see Julian Assange and offered that Trump would pardon him if he would provide evidence that the DNC was not hacked by Russia. It's hard to determine how much impetus that might have had from the Trump side of things, since then-COS Kelly was actually performing a reasonable level of gatekeeping at the time (but the man couldn't be everywhere, could he?) and Rohrabacher strikes me as the kind of guy who could use his own initiative (he went with rumored floor-shitter and actual Holocaust-denier Charles C. Johnson, so place your bets folks--these are weird people).

It would be worth a little investigation though, you think? Of course, I don't think anyone expected Assange to ever dime out his "sources" regarding the DNC hack because he was active in promoting the Seth Rich hoax just like Michael Cohen's third client and for some weird reason everybody's go-between, Sean Hannity.  What is interesting is still the extent that Trump goes to pretend that Russia never was involved in 2016. Like his talk of the 400 lb. mystery guy who did the hack, His asseverations that he believes Putin. His promotion of the very wrong and debunked Crowd Strike hoax, which was a big part of his own damn dumb stupid impeachment, which was just recently handled very well by 60 Minutes.

For goodness' sake--it was Russia!  They did actually do a shit-ton of bots and social media ads. The help is pretty hard to deny. Except--Trump is still denying it, and because he's president, the results are far more destructive.

It comes out that the sudden installation of Ric Grenell, current Ambassador to Germany, Trump loyalist and former internet troll, to Acting DNI has a little bit to do with what should be a routine update on election security to the House Intelligence Committee, Apparently, both parties on the committee were briefed regarding the security of our elections and the intent of Russia and other foreign actors to again interfere. Trump, in his paranoid and guilty little mind, took that to mean that the Deep State was telling on him to Lil' Shifty Schiff and the rest. And thus, a competent acting DNI (who was limited by the vacancies act, regardless, but still was at least, qualified for intelligence experience) is being replaced for now by someone who does not have intel experience and will be advised by another loyalist, Devin Nunes associate Kash Patel.  (Yeah. That Kash Patel.)

Oh well. Grenell won't be there for long, and it's only an outside shot that Trump will appoint Rep. Doug Collins. Who really wants to run for Senate, and really, I would love that more than having him as DNI.

Anyway, this year is going to stay weird, and I just want to end with another important quote from Amy Berman Jackson: The truth still matters. Some people want to make a regular habit of passing off on the truth, ignoring it, acting like business as usual while our institutions are under assault by people who have been entrusted with real power, but seem to have no respect for what care and duty and time and history have built up.

We all need to care. Truth matters. And Trump is the one who wants truth buried, and encourages lies. I would far prefer a president who said things that stung, if they were only true.

Stay Bull Jean Yuss 3: Turns on a Dime

Trump earlier today said he knows "nothing" about WikiLeaks. And just moments ago, Trump said: "I don't know much about it" when asked about WikiLeaks.

On the campaign trail, he said this ---> pic.twitter.com/UvAGvdveJ4

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 11, 2019

I have a few thoughts that I might work into a longer piece but the immediately remarkable thing to me post-Assange arrest is how Trump's public comments went from "I love WikiLeaks" to "I don't know much about it". Sure, it's about whatever his current use for Assange is (he had a use for him, then he didn't--nota bene, Trump allies, there's a pattern). But the way he does it is just stark.

He doesn't know much about it. Maybe he could ask his son what he knows about it. Maybe he knew at one time something about it, but hasn't thought about WikiLeaks for a minute.

Who knows? It is a mystery, huh?

TWGB: Everyone's Lying For Some Reason

Special counsel prosecutors say they have communications of Roger Stone with WikiLeaks https://t.co/baHXXYHiMi pic.twitter.com/Z4NTwaa9Sg

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) February 15, 2019

There's a weird common thread that runs through all the Trump World Grab-Bag posts: people just keep lying about things. Michael Flynn lied about contacting Russia. Jeff Session lied about it, too. Michael Cohen seems to have lied about things having to do with Russia because Trump told him to. It hasn't become an issue just yet, but Don Trump Jr. has apparently lied to Congress.


It's been established now that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, lied about certain particulars involving the Trump campaign and this voided his plea agreement. He's now looking at about 20 years or so in prison, which for a man his age, is basically a life sentence. Roger Stone sort of told on himself about contacting Wikileaks, and seemed kind of forthcoming about the depth of his WikiLeaks contacts, but this picture looks to be complicated.

The big, operant question here is, "Why does everyone around Trump lie?" Just recently, two of Trump's other attorneys were openly suspected of having lied about details regarding Michael Cohen's hush money deals, and this sounds pretty much in line with how Trump wants his circle to operate. With "alternative facts".


Pretty much everyone around Trump lies. For some reason.


And even regarding the congressional investigations, we already know Rep. Devin Nunes didn't always tell the truth (actually, he straight up lied) about matters dealing with the Russia investigation. But for that matter, it looks like Senator Richard Burr is also falling short of accuracy, with claims (picked up by the White House) that he sees no evidence of collusion. But Burr is basically lying about how accessible Christopher Steele has been, and Burr, just like Nunes, can be connected to the Trump campaign.

It's not a curiosity or a coincidence when you see this pattern of lying. It looks like a coordinated cover-up, and that means that the parties involved know very well what it is they don't want to be known because it's real and it's bad. It's Manafort is willing to void his plea agreement bad. It's Cohen goes to jail bad. It's Roger Stone's last ratfuck bad. It's respectable people will possibly become anathema bad.

My mantra all along has been "It looks bad because it is bad." Lying can temporarily make things look like they are not bad. But badness will out.

TWGB: Roger Stone's Time in the Barrel

You know, if I could save time in a barrel, the first thing that I'd like to do, is to save every email, text, and random Tweet from Roger Stone until eternity passes away, just to give them to Robert Mueller and fuck Stone the way he would fuck unto others. (My deepest apologies to Jim Croce for my appropriation of one of his tenderest songs. I'd like to think he would have understood.)

The Friday morning fortuitously-filmed arrest of Roger Stone was a great start to a very awkward day in Trump World, but in all honesty, Roger Stone had been hinting that his ass was due for an indictment or a half dozen or so for a good long while. I don't doubt the CNN claim that good reporting was the reason they had Stone's Florida abode staked out, because the day before, four indictments were filed after a rare bit of Mueller Grand Jury activity. (This is why my last post indicated that I knew I needed to clear my tabs in advance of Friday news, because I am not a reporter, but neither am I ever unplugged--RW journos claiming a tip-off for CNN exclusively for some reason are just mad they got scooped or trying to neg the Mueller investigation and the FBI for reasons that are not entirely wholesome.)

But let's get down to the barebones details--in August of 2016, Stone was caught bragging on his knowledge about what Wikileaks might drop. Even this little blog wondered if pimping the Wikileaks thing wasn't just meta-ratfucking from a person who only pretended he wasn't still working for the Trump campaign, and there's been good reason to think Roger Stone always was still "on the bus".  We've got glimmers of what folks like Randy Credico, Jerome Corsi, and Steve Bannon might have given up, but in any event, the so far collected private communications of Roger Jason Stone are amazeballs nasty.

Look, you can tell me perjury is bad and suborning perjury in others is bad, but literally going full "Wicked Witch of the West" and telling someone straight up "I will get your little dog too!" is just some crazy witness-tampering obvious almost fictional villain batshit evil. I will tell you right now, you get an entire posse of two dozen or so entirely for-free FBI just for threatening a man's little floofdog if I was running this arrest operation (complete with warrant for assorted whatever collection).

Which is about what happened, and which could be arguably overkill for some piddly "process crimes"--except let's be honest about what Stone has been doing here. Back to referencing the barebones details, if one is threatening violence, and frankly talking about abusing or leveraging other people to get certain results in a legal matter, that doesn't make them look good. To my mind, that says, you have to look at why they are engaging in these sorts of crimes that specifically try to effect the legal outcome of the Mueller investigation.

I think it's hard to say he'd have been doing these things if there wasn't some truth to the connection(s) between Wikileaks and the Trump Campaign, and their apparent foreknowledge that the info WikiLeaks had was from a Russian-sponsored cyber attack.  Although the indictment itself doesn't throw all the info Mueller has out there (and it shouldn't and for obvious reasons) we can nonetheless understand that Stone wouldn't have been indicted unless he was already screwed by what Mueller had in writing regardless of what Stone, a notoriously unreliable witness, might offer.

Which makes Stone's talk about not flipping fascinating--because this is something Trump has stated he really likes about Stone--he isn't gonna talk. But that sort of implies that there is a something he shouldn't be talking about, n'est-ce pas? The more Stone crows on various news outlets about what he will and won't do, the more it looks a bit like he's either pimping himself out for a pardon or trying to make himself look like a martyr for his legal GoFundMe. (And he isn't, based on his real estate, necessarily a poor man. He's just poor in his political choices, morality, and well, everything else that makes one human.)  Also his head is shaped very amusingly and his hair looks to be sewn-in--which probably adds to the sympathy some are wasting on this peculiarly buff-backed Nixon tattoo-sporting reprobate. But when I hear the RW Tweeters go on about poor old Rog, at age 66, the fact that he looks like  Abe Simpson is all about his life choices and he seems to be the reason weirdos like Loomer, Prosobiec and a score of other internet simple trash exist.

Miss me with any sympathy for this devil.

(Although, and to give him his due, his back tattoo is really quite good and the artist should be praised. It's awkwardly placed and sized, which is entirely Stone's choices, and the tattoo artist can't be faulted for that. But photo-representations of human faces are notoriously tricky when rendered as skin art, and entire websites exist of bad tattoo art to prove that. The Nixon tattoo is actually scaled well, and the features are proportioned correctly and do not look like a bad caricature. A piece of art like this would probably be better served on a bicep or, as a back piece, be larger. Located where it is, it's not somehow tattoo-correct. I guess a similarly-sized Nixon tramp-stamp would be far worse, of course. Maybe he could have it elaborated upon with borders of US flags or some shit when he goes to his eventual incarceration--because none of these minions even know how stingy Trump is gonna be with these pardons. He will want proofs of loyalty beyond your wildest indulgence. He's a narcissist. He can't help it.)

Not Too Jaded, This TrumpWorld Grab-Bag

In a way, I feel a little trepidation stepping back into doing a TrumpWorld Grab-Bag blogpost, because they are pretty obsessive. It requires paying a lot of attention to little stories and trying to weave them together, which I don't necessarily have the time to do that I once did. I don't have any specialized knowledge (like, you know, legal stuff) or connections or insider tidbits. But I do read a shit-ton of news, and this is the internet, and I have one of those weird brains that likes sorting out details. Of course, I haven't done this for simply months.

And yet! One thing I have gained from my self-imposed vacation is that I have rested the little grey cells and am a bit less jaded than some Mueller/Russia investigation observers.  There were any number of Twitterati who were of the very strong opinion that surely, with the elections a fait accompli, Robert Mueller would now be handing out indictments like so much Halloween candy, certainly by Friday of this week.  Now that we are on the other side of midnight from Friday, the lack of a Don Jr. perp-walk (which seems like too much to ask of the times we live in, but people will dream!) might seem anticlimactic, but as for me, things continue to look pretty interesting.

For one thing, Trump basically fired his AG Jeff Sessions, largely because he never understood that by recusing from the Russia investigation, Session was doing him a solid. The President appears to suffer from the appalling idea that public servants are his servants, and doesn't entirely grasp that they give an oath to the Constitution, not to him, and clearly believed that Sessions' job was to be involved in limiting, ending, or waylaying the Comey investigation (at first) to help Trump. However, if Trump was ever to get any inkling that there are proprieties to be observed, the fallout from firing former FBI director Comey should have been a lesson in "what not to do". To wit: Trump fires Jim Comey for "reasons", partially because he claims the Clinton email investigation was handled badly, and had Sessions and Rosenstein fig leaf that justification with letters that sound serious enough, and then blows that reason up in a nationally-viewed interview with Lester Holt. (He also tells a few Russians, in a particularly stupid way.) And that is how he ended up with a Special Counsel. 

So how does he go about the firing of his AG this time out? Well, for one thing, he picks a very Trump-sympathetic hack (Bigfoots! Time travel hot-tubs! Massive hog toilets!) and then lets it be known he basically picked this person because he was a Trump-sympathetic hack. This might be construed, even to a layperson like myself, like even more obstruction of justice. (Like the Sally Yates, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, etc., things.) But then he has so little idea that what he is doing is abusive of justice, he just says what he did!

Meanwhile, the Mueller investigation does it's quiet and necessary work, despite obstacles. For one thing, an indictment made by Mueller's team against a Russian troll farm was upheld by a Trump-appointed judge. This is good news. (For another bit of good news this week, another Trump appointed judge ordered CNN reporter Jim Acosta's WH hard pass be restored, in a pretty refreshing victory for the 1st Amendment and reminder of judicial independence. )  Of note is that the indictment was about conspiring to defraud the US government. Free speech is one thing, but there are applications of speech that are by no means acceptable--for a recent example, the harassment of a Jewish woman by white supremacists was found not to be covered. 

Another interesting detail is the likely charges against Julian Assange of Wikileaks, which also carries potential First Amendment concerns. Nonetheless, the involvement of Wikileaks in disseminating Russian-obtained federal information specifically to act against the US government (specifically, the security of it's democratic elections) potentially at the direction of a foreign entity (Russia) seems like it supersedes straightforward First Amendment concerns. And that's something they kind of seem to have been doing. I don't know if, for example, Maria Butina's discussed plea deal will reveal information that enlightens us about that side of the operation, but on the "connections to GOP operatives" side of the equation, Roger Stone was apparently in the loop regarding what Wikileaks had and was dropping, and also, maybe, waste of protein Jerome Corsi (known for "Swiftboating" and "Birtherism"--two terms that never should have been entered into the American lexicon) both appear to have had relations with that man, Julian Assange (as had Dana Rohrabacher, with human hairy nevus Charles C. Johnson in his train--who also might be a yet another link to a potential Don Jr perp-walk fantasy, and Nigel Farage, who acted as if he always sometimes dropped by the Ecuadoran embassy for no particular reason).

But of people who Mueller seems to have dead-to-rights from the Trump campaign as having been all up in some kind of skullduggery, it is interesting to me that sentencing is delayed for Rick Gates and there has been an extension in reporting on the status of Paul Manafort's plea agreement. One really cool interpretation of this is that they are both being so very helpful. So. Very. Helpful. To the investigation. Which seems truer when you consider both those things in tandem, but I would guess anything further might be delayed until after Thanksgiving--

And I don't even mind! Because I am not jaded, and am genuinely interested in how all of this shakes out!

This TrumpWorld Grab-Bag Tries to Keep Up

Sometimes, I think the dumbest thing about the "collusion/no collusion" argument regarding the 2016 presidential campaign is that what Trump's campaign relied on never was all that low-key. Trump was pretty openly loving the Wikileaks' release of carefully curated DNC emails. Russian bots retweeted Trump and WikiLeaks material very heavily in the final push of the campaign. (And, for what it's worth, Russian bots are still giving Trump's agenda a digital assist.) This wasn't subtext--it was text! Trump was briefed on the intel about Russian hacking, and publically continued to deny it was even a thing. Everything, he contended, was rigged against him. Even though, you know...her emails. 

It turns out that WikiLeaks, for their part, really were trying to help Trump! Who knew? (Everyone.)  And Assange seems sympathetic to Russia, and in addition is misogynistic and anti-Semitic. Which probably should make him more of a Pepe peep (I am still kind of salty about people on The Left who have a soft space for this fail-souled Bond villain.) The things you learn, and from The Intercept, at that. Huh.

In other news, a couple days back, it was revealed in a Senate Intelligence Committee sit-down with the IC agency heads that the Trump Administration didn't order the least little thing to do with stopping Russia from interfering with future elections, even though Russia is so totally going to interfere, because that is their thing. This would be kind of shocking, except it isn't because Trump's still pretending he can shout "No collusion" and then on the other hand not enact sanctions that Congress overwhelmingly passed against Russia. For the election interference. Which Trump still denies. 

You might think that sort of thing would disturb more people. Because once again--it isn't even in hiding but plain sight. Trump does not give a shit about whether Russia interfered because it benefits him, and America First is a neat slogan with a racist past, but it essentially does not mean Trump is putting America First. He puts himself first.

You know who else puts Trump first though? The NRA. They gave a record amount to the Trump and other Republican campaigns in 2016,  but it appears they also received some money from Russia. Could that have been some money laundering right into the Trump Campaign?  That would be a great avenue of inquiry.  (Needless to say, I'm feeling some kind of way about the NRA right now and after every horrifying mass shooting event.)

Now, money laundering--that comes up a lot when I do these TrumpWorld Grab-Bag things. That seems to have been a Paul Manafort specialty,  but there is a interesting thing that has happened in that corner of Bob Mueller's investigation--Manafort's partner Rick Gates looks to be cooperating, and he was active with the campaign even after Manafort was out.  That seems significant. It also strikes me as damn fascinating that Steve Bannon has given about 20 hours of his precious time to Mueller's team (and 4 hours to the Congressional Committee, which might be saying something about the respect accorded to the different investigative bodies). He is sticking with an "executive privilege" line with the Congress critters, but I don't know what he might have given Mueller and his team. I wonder if Trump has any idea?

Lastly, the Rob Porter situation has laid bare a pretty shocking White House story--130 or so White House staffers have not got permanent security clearances for some reason or other.  Maybe because they could be easily subject to blackmail, or, as they say, the Kompromat! I don't pretend I know, but my word, if anyone says "but her emails" ever again  I surely will think about skull-thumping that person with great vigor. Because, like Rob Porter's wife-beating or Jared Kushner's astonishing debt problems, this represents national security problems that feel deliberate, and, with this Administration, are probably not fixable for the foreseeable. Because this Administration is lead by careless jerks who have always been compromised--for reference, see the entirety of the TrumpWorld Grab-Bag page!

Cheers!

In TrumpWorld, Grab-Bag Investigates You!

Imagine that nothing else happened today, but that a president who was accused during his campaign of being a "puppet" of a foreign dictator, who spoke effusively at times of that foreign dictator, when faced with a mandate from congress that overwhelmingly voted to put sanctions on that dictator for interfering in that election, just said "No, because it's such a deterrent to them doing stuff with us." Umph! Like, a deterrent to influencing more of our elections or making other decisions as a sovereign nation? 

It would seem from an actual real-time event like that, just as we have had other real-time events that kind of suggested that Donald Trump was doing the bidding of Russia, this should bother the Congress that passed that act bringing those sanctions, but what actually happened was they decided to release a memo that was made by Devin Nunes, who I will be referring to as Trump's Renfield, and did not release a memo drafted by House Democrats. 

This seems odd. It's like Congressional Republicans both understand that Russian interference was a real thing, but also will only pay the merest lip service to doing anything about it. Huh! And yet, the same House is investigating DOJ decisions for a while, now.  As if the real sin in today's politics is finding fault with Trump.

In other news, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is leaving because there's really only so much a person can put the hell up with before one's legit retirement and maybe one's Director is giving strong hints where the exit door is. He joins a storied company that includes Sally Yates, Preet Bharara and Jim Comey. 

I wouldn't wonder what lessons the DOJ in general and the FBI specifically are taking from this politicized display regarding their office and the approach it shows regarding the rule of law. It might not be what the authors of this deplorable exercise had in mind, though.

In other news, we are sad to hear that Julian Assange is in bad shape because he lacks Vitamin D and the courage to just suck it up and deal with the thing where he took off his condom and tried it.  It's rumored he also doesn't smell great and sent DMs to Sean Hannity parody accounts.  Which does not only suggest Assange's mind has gone a little soft, but also that he and Hannity have possibly had a previous correspondence or so. 

Anyway, what I am saying is, the history of dirt against Trump seems to have been spot on, and the dirt against Clinton and the DNC seems to have been spotty. Trump and his admirers striking out against the investigation seems to me not like they see wrongdoing there, but like they are afraid it will be found with their team.

I'm just saying, as I always do: It looks bad because it is bad.

The Sins of the TrumpWorld Grab-Bags

One of the things I do kind of love about the Trump family is their enthusiasm and loyalty. I would. And for what it is worth, while much is made of the puzzling pair of Javanka and the weird nepotism of their even being White House advisers, and having security clearances (especially Jared, amirite?), it's the contributions to our culture made by Donald Jr. that truly fascinate me.  

It looks like Don Jr. is once again the focus of the collusion question, because WikiLeaks definitely decided that the way to the father was through the son.  (Not sure where Assange got that idea.) The messages in Jr's DM's, while not necessarily responded to, did apparently result in Trump Sr. pushing WikiLeaks info. 

(FWIW: there is a lot of examples of  Trump referencing WikiLeaks.)

The thing with Don Jr's involvement in coordinating with WikiLeaks is that no one can just decide that he was a low-level volunteer. Unlike George Papadopoulos, who definitely conveyed to WH Senior Advisor Stephen Miller that Russia had "dirt" on Clinton. His position, being the person currently charged with running his father's business, should be clearly seen as important. 

But what does this mean, besides the links between the Trump campaign and various Russian cut-outs becoming more obvious? Well, it might mean statements that make no sense and are, whether intentionally or unintentionally, degrading to our intelligence community coming from the White House and POTUS himself. Or it could mean poor national security decisions. 

It does not mean anything good. As I keep saying--it looks bad because it is bad. 

It also will not mean Julian Assange is Ambassador from Australia. WTF? No, this silly boy is staying at the Ecuadoran Embassy until they get sick of his pasty ass and put his bunk out on the street with him in it. Which will be a day.

With TrumpWorld Grab-Bags Like These...

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R.--Kremlin) had a little side-trip to the Ecuadoran Embassy in London last month which was partially arranged (!?) by RW blogger-provocateur Chuck C. Johnson (which sounds nicer than "creepy little muck-dwelling alt-right alleged floor-shitter, Chuck C. Johnson") to meet with Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange. It sort of feels inexcusable that this escaped my attention--the guy who fellow GOP congressman Kevin McCarthy described as possibly on Putin's payroll, meets with the WikiLeaks guy, through this guy.  Sure, it all sounds flaky as hell, but I'm trying to be a Trump/Russia compleatist over here. 

Anyways, Rohrabacher wants to talk with Trump about getting Assange exonerated for disseminating various bits of classified US info, if Assange provides information that exonerates Russia from the DNC hack. A sort of mutual back-washing scheme. 

That's. But. How does he? Can you even? The sad thing is, Trump does denial over the Russian hack thing so convincingly, I wonder if he wouldn't go for it. It would be really dumb. But I wonder.

I'm not sure that whatever Assange means to provide is going to quite prove anything of the "exonerating Russia" quality, and I suspect the decision to "exonerate" Assange really isn't up to Trump, anyway. But it's the thought that counts, since Rohrabacher hasn't been able to do anything about Magnitsky. And Trump probably won't, either. (Sorry, Vlad, I know a lot of money is probably at stake here.)

Meanwhile, back at the Mueller investigation, he obtained a warrant for and received information from Facebook relating to the troll farm of fake accounts that pumped all kinds of ads and fake news and whatnot to the eyeballs of US voting people. It would be a darn shame if this could be verified as having been coordinated with Jared Kushner's data operation. For Jared Kushner. And the campaign. 

In other weird news, it looks like Mike Flynn had been working on a nuclear power project involving  putting plants all over the Middle East (which would count on Russian companies for maintaining site security)--and while it should have been tidily wrapped up in December 2016, um, it wasn't. And maybe he and Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner met with King Abdullah II of Jordan before the inauguration to discuss...the nuclear "Marshall Plan", as it might be called. 

There's so many moving pieces of wrong in this scenario it's kind of hard to know where to start. But in any event, the DNC hack and Wikileaks' participation in throwing the information out to the public, and the way that information release seemed to be timed to the needs of the Trump Campaign in a way that seemed, maybe, a little coordinated, is definitely just one, and not even necessarily the top, messed-up thing with the TrumpWorld milieu. It's really a target-rich environment, and Robert Mueller just keeps adding sharp-shooters to his team. 

Assange is Such a Troll

Maybe...


Nope. Definitely trolling.

WikiLeaks Sure Got Weird Recently

Um. I know. I just did a WikiLeaks post, and it's not like the org (By which I basically just mean Julian Assange, because, right now, is there anyone else but him? Inquiring minds and all that) is my regular bugbear. It's just that I've been wrong, haven't I? WikiLeaks had to have moved the needle a little. After all, Trump won. In retrospect, dirty tricks (that is what framing an information release selectively with the intent to distort could be construed as, right?) might have accounted for a little bit a lot.

But what does anyone make of a discussion about creating a database that starts from "verified" Twitter users to uncover a network of influence?  It doesn't seem like a nice social science experiment to determine who is a real macher on Twitter, and seems a bit more like being the thing they really want to disavow:

Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that if such a database is brought to fruition, with information made public about any number of people, their housing, their jobs, there will be a very sternly-worded disclaimer not to do bad things with this information, which is for very noble social science purposes only, and stop laughing, will you?

Snap diagnosis: Assange suffers from a profound lack of Vitamin D and needs to get out more.

It's a damn shame, huh?

It sure is awful when folks leak information to the public with some kind of political agenda. It just makes people look bad, right?

Assange is Maybe A Little Disingenuous

Julian Assange claims President Obama is trying to “delegitimize” Donald Trump with hacking allegations https://t.co/tvKSelcgUm

— Salon (@Salon) January 4, 2017

It's probably my deep partisanship that makes me respond to the idea that President Obama wants to "delegitimize" Donald Trump, with the very obvious: well, who then wanted to see President Obama's birth certificate to determine if Obama was even a citizen, or called for his college transcripts, to try and find out whether he was even smart? Trump made this an acceptable play. For what it's worth, were either of Trump's parents born in the US? What does his birth certificate say? And maybe I want Trump's school transcripts because he doesn't seem so smart, either.

I also have a tendency to think, that if the GRU was peddling the fruits of their warez to Count Hackula in the Ecuadoran Embassy, they probably wouldn't have fronted as GRU or state-sponsored in any way. They used a thing called a "cut out"--pretty basic. They might have represented as a security firm.* Maybe Assange is telling the truth in stating that he doesn't believe that he was contacted by Russian intelligence resources (even if I think this is a buttload of denial). Still and all, the Gateway Pundit-level framing left no possible alternative in my mind that WikiLeaks had a certain political agenda W/R/T the US elections. I don't trust a damn thing he says anymore.

It is pathetic Sean Hannity does. But he is a propagandist by nature. Treating Assange like a major truth telling machine, when just a while ago he was the worst kind of traitor? Turned entirely on what party's narrative Assange served? Yeah., Hannity, we have got you read.


* Ah:

Reminder: #WikiLeaks is a publisher. We don't hack.
Anonymous sources submit documents on our platform.
We verify and publish.#defendWL

— WikiLeaks Task Force (@WLTaskForce) October 25, 2016

Anonymous. They don't even "know".

Believing Absurdities

There is a price to pay for bullshit. Voltaire is quoted as saying: "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities". So my mind doesn't exactly boggle when a person who self-selected for bullshit came away with an absurd notion that resulted in arming himself and entering an innocent business to "investigate" or ...to shoot people.

The fake news piece is lurid and unsubstantiated. And people with a surprising amount of responsibility have been sucked in because they, too, have self-selected for bullshit. Threats have been made towards the business in question, businesses in the neighborhood and journalists who have tried to point out that the whole thing is bullshit because this bullshit is so awful that they prefer to believe it.

Think about that. Debunking becomes a nefarious cover-up to a true believer. Trying to unravel lies becomes heresy. And people who believe this kind of nonsense are in the circle of the PEOTUS.

This thing I was saying about how facts matter? This is exactly what I'm talking about.

This is the Kind of Thing: Part One

Reddit Exposes Hillary Clinton Linked Front Company Trying To Frame Assange As A ‘Pedo’ https://t.co/JPO45vc5jj

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 25, 2016

So this is complicated--it actually is true that for all the #freeJulian bovine residue out there it is nonetheless true that Assange actually is holed up in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London because he believes (as I understand it) that if he answers for rape charges brought against him in Sweden, he will definitely be extradited to the US to answer for broadcasting stolen US data. And that's all well and good--keep in mind that Assange is not a political prisoner except in his own mind, and then recognize that this matter that the rancher stepped in is probably beside the point.

Gosh. While this isn't as choice as linking to Gateway Pundit, relying on info gleaned from Reddit certainly feels like someone is using a urinal cake as a breath-freshener. It's kind of sad when noble haxxors of yore don't recognize traditions of the internets like randos calling out a potential friend of Pedobear and think the fix had to come from up top.

I don't know what is up with whether he and his shop are dumping stuff illegally obtained for fun and profit in a way that many internetizens can't even get our panties bunched about, but can we just admit that the framing is massively unimpressive? Either straight material going out has signal or is noise. The WikiLeaks stuff seems like noise when you try to contextualize it. The pretense that stuff is being authenticated seems hollow and the result isn't hitting gut-buttons except with the folks who like that kind of thing. I don't think he has the staff he used to have to check shit out. But so what? We've got the kind of stuff Senator Sanders admits his campaign's email might reveal.  Some of the stuff, like the "oversampling" polls stuff, doesn't seem hinky to people who understand polling or campaigns. Josh Marshall explains that oversampling is actually the "best business practices" standard of trying to get a granular view of the potential vote, and in any event, a campaign would be shooting itself in the foot to rely on skewed polls.

I don't need to think Assange is a pedo to think that Ecuador cut his internet because fuxx0ring with the US elections was just a bridge too far for them. So--hmpf. I don't know how uninformed you have to be to take this ride and be thrilled, but I am pretty much not the target here--and I'm really sad an audience for it exists.

Let's Pretend I Worry About WikiLeaks

Goddamn it. As the Cubs enter the World Series, is it somehow possible that Secretary Clinton's lack of actually following the sport could set her back in the polls? You know, among die-hard Cubs fans? Has this bit of surreptitiously-gained intel suddenly made her a candidate less-favorable than Donald Trump, who undoubtedly is conversant with the names of sporting figures on account of his being a dude? Unless no one actually expects politicians to shout out sports except as a form of pandering because no duh.

This is basically what we've been getting from the trickle of WikiLeaks docs of late, which come out like they were obstructed by some kind of metaphorical swollen prostate, and say very little that especially damns Secretary Clinton. I don't know or care how Russia feels about this. Or if WikiLeaks is bothered that they are peddling duds. (Who let down whom, I wonder?)

Truth be told, Julian Assange is sort of like a Bond Villian, but without the recondite strategy. He sometimes pretends at being a threatening so and so because he's cornered and paranoid, but then he uses his skills to do this thing.  

He's occasionally pretended he's about transparency but he isn't, exactly, And he seems to be pissing off his gallant hosts.  Do they worry, perhaps, that he might use their Wifi to eventually actually be unveiled about his anti-Semitisms? Or are they just trying to stave off an international incident because he seems to be trying to manipulate the US elections?

Meh. So far, wannabe Bond Villain hasn't really done anything to move HRC's needle. Troubling, quite.

Julian Assange is Kind of Dumb

Clinton's advisors contacted NFL chief to ask for help over her "Cracked head" https://t.co/9YgUFJd5hk

The emails: https://t.co/jpq1mQG5uH

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 23, 2016

So, linking to Stupidest Man on the internet, Jim Hoft, is already a dodgy decision, but really? The NFL commissioner notoriously denies that football is damaging players' brains despite medical studies showing the contrary (also he is not a medical professional). The other person mentioned in the email, Bill Frist, is notorious for having diagnosed Terry Schiavo based on a video he saw on tv.

Would these even plausibly be real people that someone reaches out to for medical advice? No, these are joke people. Because sometimes, when humans have friends who are not feeling well, they try to make them laugh so they will feel better. I know Assange doesn't get out much, but just because Roger Stone is using him as a rodent dildo doesn't mean he has to be a stupid rodent dildo.

Sorry. More on Rape Apologia. This Time with George Galloway.

I think I feel about the MP's rape apology with respect to Assange fairly similarly to how I felt with regards to Naomi Wolf's defense of Assange--that he should know better and it's completely disgraceful. But as long as the defense gets made, I believe it has to be refuted, so here we are:

"Even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100% true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don't constitute rape," Galloway said. "At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it. And somebody has to say this. 

"Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat, gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him, claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know. I mean, not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion."

"Not everybody needs to be asked prior to insertion."  Not everybody but possibly somebody, certainly? And how is one to tell who these free-spirits are, to differentiate them from the killjoys who'd rather have a little beauty-rest than some uninvited pronging?

Naomi Wolf. Wow.

[TW: Discussion of rape and the assumptions of rape apologists.]

Michael Moore has come down from his tower, Keith Olbermann's tower may actually be constructed of his own ego, but then there is this exchange between Naomi Wolf and Jaclyn Friedman that I wanted to get down to, because I heard bad things. Actually, first, I read a couple posts by Wolf at Huffington Post, which I hoped would be sorted out more fully in this exchange, only....they weren't. The first part of the debate is here:



(Link to transcript at this link.)

I have been finding a lot of what she's been saying a little difficult to take, but it isn't just the what--it's the how. (Has she been taking notes over here--only, with the actual intent to be be derailing?)