Tuesday, March 26, 2019

The devil says: "Give it up, Democrats"

"Give It Up, Democrats. The Russia Investigation Is Over." So sayeth Alex Shephard of the Newly Republican.

No. A thousand times NO. Vade retro.

Virginia Heffernan has a "good source" who says that the real Report is far worse for Trump than Barr makes it out to be. We have one excellent reason to believe that this unnamed source is onto something:

We haven't seen the Thing-In-Itself.

If the report were exonerative, you'd already have the pdf in your "Downloads" folder. As simple as that.

We haven't even had a glimpse of Mueller's summary. There has to be some sort of summary, either at the beginning or at the end. That's the way all writers -- of any sort -- work. If you compose a long and detailed document, at some point you will offer the gist.

As noted in the previous post, Barr weirdly truncates the one sentence of actual Mueller which supposedly exonerates Trump of the collusion charge. Why?

Although I was the first blogger to suggest that Putin was helping Trump, I was not surprised by Mueller's conclusion that the campaign did not collaborate directly with the Russian government. In fact, I would have been astounded if such a thing had happened. Both Team Trump and Team Putin would have used deniable cut-outs. That's how operations are done. That's Spook 101.

I am, by nature, the most flamboyantly pessimistic personage ever produced by the great state of California -- a man for whom every bright sky contains a dark cloud and every happy chipmunk carries an untreatable form of the plague. But in this case, obstinate optimism remains the way to bet. Absence of Mueller's actual words offers evidence of criminality, or at least of the politically difficult. Reticence or refusal to divulge those words proves conclusively that Mueller wrote something that Trump and Barr do not want us to know.

Trump's ploy is the demoralize the Dems to the point where they do not insist on seeing the actual report. People like Alan Shephard and David Brooks are playing the devil's game.

Vade retro
. And speaking of His Satanic Majesty, here's Matt Taibbi:

Thank you, Marcy! She probably didn't read my words. (Then again, maybe.) But Marvelous Marcy Wheeler (as Stan Lee would have called her) makes the same point that riveted my own attention:
For example, this is a sentence fragment. Why didn't Barr give us the full sentence? Taibbi doesn't know what the rest of it says--nor do I--but it may say there was some evidence there.
She makes this point in the context of a full-on takedown of Taibbi, a formerly-great writer whom I shall never take seriously again. (What did they do to him in Russia?) I shall take the liberty of translating her tweets into conventional prose:
What Mueller did know is:

1) Trump's campaign learned Russia had hacked Hillary before she did.

2) Trump was pursuing a ridiculously lucrative real estate deal, involving sanctioned banks and a former GRU officer and Putin's involvement, in secret, until at least June.

3) At a time he was hoping to seal up that deal, Don Jr accepted a meeting offering dirt on Hillary as part of a RU govt package of assistance. At the end, he said dad would revisit sanctions relief if he won.

4) Two months later, Trump's campaign manager shared polling data w/a guy he knew would pass it on to Ukr and RU oligarchs at a meeting where they discussed a Ukrainian "Peace" deal. The campaign manager continued to lie abt this in hopes of getting a pardon.

5) Trump's campaign asked Roger Stone to optimize the release of the email Russia stole from Hillary. Per Jerome Corsi, he had some success in doing so.

6) Before inauguration, Trump moved towards offering sanctions relief.

12 comments:

Sharon said...

So glad you finally snapped out of it, Joe. Welcome back.

Alessandro Machi said...

I keep going back to the Hillary Angle. In both 2008 and 2016 there was a men led group that was able to thwart Hillary Clinton. In 2008 Hillary Clinton got pummeled by a media that absolutely wanted Barack Obama to win while Obama, Richardson and Edwards also combined forces against her.

In 2016 She was done in by trying to work with Barack Obama while Bernie Sanders came up with some really diabolical accusations that fooled and angered so many Sander's Supporters it was sad to watch.

But, Hillary Clinton chose not to use Facebook Micro Ads and it cost her the Election. If she had admitted to that, the Mueller Investigation might have been more laid back. Instead of looking for "Collusion" as is described in your article, Mueller could have actually relaxed and let everyone explain that collusion was nothing more than consulting. The result being that more salient information would have been offered, info that could have led to other roads and maybe we actually find if there was any actual ballot or vote machine manipulation in any way.

Never go for trying to find the liar, rather loosen things up so an investigation can actually pivot as necessary. This "I caught you in a lie" routine does not work. Didn't work against Clinton, although it did provide fodder for the Republican party they still use to this day, Didn't work in the Mueller Investigation.

nemdam said...

Well, if you have some optimism, I guess that means I still have to as well. I'm one of the more optimistic commenters here, but this "Barr report" has me completely deflated. The way I see it, the narrative has already been set, and unless the Mueller is overwhelmingly earth shattering, then I can't see how it will get dislodged. The media can barely contain its glee that Trump has been exonerated so they can pretend everything is "normal". This whole saga has shown how ugly and disgusting this country is, and I have very little faith left in it. My coping mechanism is understanding that the US has no birthright to be a free, fair, and overall good place and that countries and great powers have fallen before and life goes on. I just didn't think it could be done by a bullshit 4 page summary of a document almost no one has seen.

It's also possible that the infamous sentence “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” exists because like obstruction because it involves the President, Mueller thought this is ultimately a decision for Congress to decide. Because there's no way to square the plain meaning of that sentence with both the Trump Tower meeting and the voluminous contact with Russians that the Trump campaign hid. Beaches in Antarctica make more sense than that.

Anonymous said...

Good to have you back on the beat, Joseph.

Good post. I’m looking forward to more.

- Tom

b said...

FWIW, and apropos of Cambridge Analytica, it wouldn't surprise me if in the next few days Dominic Cummings is arrested. Which will be a good thing, because he's got a big mouth.

Anonymous said...

I never had faith in Mueller Not for one second. Also I couldn't understand why democrats put in such a pedestal. Anyway my disappointment continues to be on democrats rather than anyone else. Does anyone remembers the threat made by Dump in one of rallies if the investigation came against him? I guess the house democrats now can breathe a sigh of relief, it didn't come to that.
Anyone who donated money or effort to democrats should ask for their money back

Joseph Cannon said...

Thanks, anon. I have quite a ways to go if I want to rebuild my readership. But it's nice to know that I am still read in Saint Petersburg. Come on, be a sport. Скажите, если вы можете понять это.

joseph said...

If you were Trump, wouldn't you want the Barr report to dominate the news cycle for at least a week? Would you really want to step on that with Obamacare repeal and taking money from the Special Olympics? Perhaps he knows something we don't, specifically that Heffernan is right and there is bad news coming on the Mueller report and wants to bury that news.
On a personal note to Joseph, why don't you have a link to a page that features some of your artwork which would be for sale. Some of us may not contribute, but would buy artwork.

Alessandro Machi said...

dailypuma.blogspot.com has an RSS feed to Joseph for those that want to scan multiple blogs at once while keeping an eye on Joseph's next article. Although I assume there is an email sign up list?

Lester Holt and James Comey had a fascinating and well edited discussion during Wednesday Evening News (March 27, 2019) on NBC. Both actually discussed whether or not the FBI should be going after and indicting people who are afraid to talk but have committed no crime. Comey totally defended the practice. If somebody hasn't committed a crime, then why make them feel like they have? This is what leads to the obstruction of somewhat pointless information that leads to charges that gets everyone amped up, over nothing.

Joseph Cannon said...

jospeh, you are very kind. But I am a failed illustrator. This has been a tough thing to acknowledge. We tend, nowadays, to presume that depression has a physical cause; I think it has more to do with simple failure.

Anonymous said...

Joseph,

Having once been a philosphy and psychology student, I feel qualified to observe that no human failure is simple.

Indeed your gifts as a writer are made evident here on your blog. Insights made possible by decades of observation and thinking from a somewhat different angle than usually encountered, livened up by quirky humor. You do good work.

In re: Matt Taibbi

After reading your question about what hold certain foreign entities might have on him, I did a little search.

He admitted to doing a lot sleazy misogynistic behavior, including sexual assaults, plus heavy drug abuse, delivered is the guise of sub-sophomoric humor known as “satire.”

Well, it’s a somewhat complicated picture, according to Taibbi, et al. The clumsy satire necessary to permit the occasional “story” of what some well-connected oligarch is was up to. Blah blah blah.

What if only a small portion of the ugliness billed in the memoir as nonfiction, yet later conveniently dismissed as satire and jokes in lamentably poor taste were indeed true? The answer woul be a filing cabinet, or a decent size thumb drive filled with that famed product of Russian intelligence operations: Kompromat. Lots and lots of it.

So the chastened, yet highly skilled Taibbi returns home. He might have been offered free reign to write about the ills of the U. S. He does this well. I get his books used or from a library, so that not one dime of my money will end up in his pocket.

Yet on matters concerning Russia, he takes a rather different approach. Very skeptical of any nefarious involvement in our political system.

- Tom

Alessandro Machi said...

Joseph, you are not a failed illustrator. I recall your How Obama Stole Christmas Pictorial. Why don't you start doing Editorial Cartoons as a separate site to this site? Maybe have a donation plate on that site and keep this one as is.