If Trump were really concerned about Rosatom's ownership of an American uranium mine, he could force a divestiture.
One Executive Order. That's all it would take. This fact alone proves that the whole charge is bogus.
Scandal, nothingburger, or trap? I'm suspicious of Jason Leopold's latest.
On Aug. 3 of last year, just as the US presidential election was entering its final, heated phase, the Russian foreign ministry sent nearly $30,000 to its embassy in Washington. The wire transfer, which came from a Kremlin-backed Russian bank, landed in one of the embassy’s Citibank accounts and contained a remarkable memo line: “to finance election campaign of 2016.”That's not a lot of money. Why on earth would Russia label the transfers "to finance election campaign of 2016"? That's akin to a gang of bank robbers spray-painting the words "GETAWAY CAR" on their getaway car.
That wire transfer is one of more than 60 now being scrutinized by the FBI and other federal agencies investigating Russian involvement in the US election. The transactions, which moved through Citibank accounts and totaled more than $380,000, each came from the Russian foreign ministry and most contained a memo line referencing the financing of the 2016 election.
The money wound up at Russian embassies in almost 60 countries from Afghanistan to Nigeria between Aug. 3 and Sept. 20, 2016. It is not clear how the funds were used. At least one transaction that came into the US originated with VTB Bank, a financial institution that is majority-owned by the Kremlin.
Anyone wishing to pump that kind of money into the Trump campaign -- or any other campaign -- need merely donate 50 bucks at a time. Absolutely no-one keeps track of the small donors. Ding ding ding, over and over again. A computer program could do it. It's a nearly fool-proof method.
So what's the deal with those transfers? I have a theory.
By August 3, the media was already talking about the Trump/Russia connection. It would have made sense for Russia to make a modest donation to the Clinton campaign in order to besmirch her. This is, in fact, a classic Roger Stone tactic -- arranging for an enemy candidate to receive "donations" rom a group disliked by the general public. In 1972, George McGovern got money from an organization called "Gays for McGovern."
Speaking of dirty tricks...
"Believe Women" is already being used against Bill Clinton. Check out Caitlin Flanagan's scurrilous piece in The Atlantic...
Yet let us not forget the sex crimes of which the younger, stronger Bill Clinton was very credibly accused in the 1990s. Juanita Broaddrick reported that when she was a volunteer on one of his gubernatorial campaigns, she had arranged to meet him in a hotel coffee shop. At the last minute, he had changed the location to her room in the hotel, where she says he very violently raped her. She said that she fought against Clinton throughout a rape that left her bloodied. At a different Arkansas hotel, he caught sight of a minor state employee named Paula Jones, and, Jones said, he sent a couple of state troopers to invite her to his suite, where he exposed his penis to her and told her to kiss it. Kathleen Willey said that she met him in the Oval Office for personal and professional advice and that he groped her, rubbed his erect penis on her, and pushed her hand to his crotch.This is crap.
It was a pattern of behavior; it included an alleged violent assault; the women involved had far more credible evidence than many of the most notorious accusations that have come to light in the past five weeks. But Clinton was not left to the swift and pitiless justice that today’s accused men have experienced. Rather, he was rescued by a surprising force: machine feminism. The movement had by then ossified into a partisan operation, and it was willing—eager—to let this friend of the sisterhood enjoy a little droit de seigneur.
Bill Clinton was not given any kind of a free pass. He was subjected to a tireless, ruthless inquisition by enemies who were utterly ruthless and extremely well-funded.
Flanagan refuses to let her readers see the evidence that these women lied, and that their stories transmogrified over time. Flanagan's deceptive account of the Broaddrick story is particularly infuriating: There's a damned good reason why even the National Fucking Enquirer wouldn't touch her story. (And that reason is not because the National Enquirer is part of the Evil Penismonster Conspiracy Against Women.)
I too say that we must believe the women. Not all women: Women are just as likely as men to be corruptible, bribe-able, and blackmailable. But some women are superbly resistant to corruption.
In fact, some women are downright heroic.
You know who I believe? Susan McDougal. She was imprisoned on bullshit charges and assured that she would walk -- and no doubt prosper, financially -- if she recited the script that the Republicans wanted her to recite.
I also believe Julie Hiatt Steele, the brave woman who proved Kathleen Willey a liar. Please note that propagandists like Caitlin Flanagan refuse to mention Steele. (So where do you get the best borscht in St. Petersburg, Caitlin?) The younger generation doesn't know her story, and the older folks have largely forgotten. The following was published in March of 2001:
Julie Hiatt Steele, hounded and prosecuted by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr during the Clinton impeachment campaign of 1998-99, is facing severe financial and personal difficulties arising from Starr's vendetta against her.Here's a recent tweet from Julie Hiatt Steele:
Steele hasn't worked since February 1998, when she submitted an affidavit in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case undermining the credibility of Kathleen Willey, a one-time Clinton supporter who achieved notoriety by going on the Sixty Minutes television program in March 1998 and accusing Clinton of making unwanted sexual advances.
Steele lost her employment when the affidavit and her refusal to go along with Willey's version of events became public knowledge. Subsequently she became the target of an extraordinary campaign of prosecutorial terror and intimidation by Starr's office.
Steele was dragged before two grand juries. Her daughter and brother, as well as a former lawyer and accountant, were also interrogated. She was forced to turn over tax and bank records, credit reports and telephone records to Starr's investigators. Most despicably, the Office of the Independent Counsel threatened to move against Steele's parental rights, making public the fact that it was looking into the procedures—which were, in fact, entirely legal—by which she had adopted her son in Romania.
Ultimately, in January 1999, Starr indicted Steele on three counts of obstructing justice and one charge of making false statements. She faced the possibility of 35 years in jail and a one million dollar fine. Starr's office pursued its legally baseless and vindictive case against Steele to trial in May 1999. The case ended in a hung jury and mistrial, a humiliating defeat for Starr. His office decided not to pursue a retrial.
Starr's conduct toward Steele was of a piece with his legal attack on other would-be witnesses against the Clintons, including Susan McDougal, whom he kept in prison for 18 months on contempt charges. In both cases, Starr used his legal powers to prosecute and harass people who refused to give testimony that supported his vendetta against Clinton. Both McDougal and Steele assert that Starr and his band of legal toughs persecuted them because they refused to give false testimony as demanded by the Independent Counsel.
Having run through her savings and unable to work for emotional and physical reasons since her trial ended, Steele, a divorced mother of two grown daughters and a 10-year-old son, now faces the loss of her house in Virginia.
Starr wanted us locked up for refusing to lie. Starr, via the OIC, informed me that they needed a Kathleen Willey grope. They said I could pick my own date, it could be consensual or not. Refusal would result in indictment. I refused & indictedIn a later tweet, she says that she was acquitted "but lost everything but our dignity."
"Believe Women"? No. Believe the RIGHT women. Believe the women who don't take the pay-off. Believe the women who act selflessly and with courage. Believe women who would rather lose everything than kowtow to the right-wing manipulators. Believe the women who, when society hands them lined paper, have the courage to write the other way.
Believe Susan McDougal. Believe Julie Hiatt Steele.
Don't believe Paula Jones or Kathleen Willey or Juanita Broaddrick. And in the future, do NOT believe Caitlin Flanagan.
You've heard the phrase "A wolf in sheep's clothing"? People forget that half of all wolves are female.
The Future. Lest you think that this blog exists purely to defend the Clintons -- with whom I've often disagreed on policy -- let's consider the next election. We don't know yet whom the Dems will choose. If they choose Biden -- well, I know something about Biden that you do not. Let's leave it at that.
As a thought experiment, let's posit that Al Franken jumps into the race (even though he says he won't). Everyone loves Al, right? I'd vote for him. Hell, I'd work for him. But if he got any traction, if he got the nomination -- well, you know damn well what would happen.
He'll be accused of committing acts of sexual abuse during his SNL days.
That's not just a prediction. It's a mortal lock. It's an absolute certainty.
And on cue, right-wing plants in the "liberal" media (why are you squirming, Caitlin?) will tell Dems that we must always Believe Women, even when Women make unbelievable claims about lovable Al Franken.
Never forget: The Alt Right has LIMITLESS funds. They can pay millions to make any smear -- however baseless, however inane -- seem credible.
Can you be 100 percent certain that (oh, say) Laraine Newman would refuse an offer of $20 million to tell lies about Franken? Maybe she would refuse that offer. In fact, I'm pretty darn sure that she would. But can you be 100 percent certain that every woman who worked on SNL (both behind the scenes and on camera) during Franken's time on the show would refuse an offer of $20 million? Can you be absolutely certain that all of those women are incorruptible?
Even (oh, say) Victoria Jackson?
Mark my words: The propagandists possess the power to convince half the country that Al Franken had Gilda Radner killed to shut her up. The same people who gave us birtherism and Pizzagate will not shrink from the Gilda Radner Murder Conspiracy.
Shit like that WILL happen. It's a lock. If Franken doesn't run, then any other male Dem will face these accusations. This is the future that the Believe Women movement makes inevitable.
25 comments:
Caitlin Flannagan is a lousy writer, a right wing hack and a low quality human being. Her presence in The Atlantic along with the likes of Haidt led me to drop the mag. My theory is that they publish Coates to lure decent folks in.
Joseph, you may be right about the cynical use to which Beleve Women may be put. The strategy now is to normalize Trump. That would be why Bill Clinton is stll an issue, besides Clinton Derangement Syndrome, the purpose of which now is to normalize Trump -- and to supply pink slime (google it if you're unaware) labeled "red meat" to the rubes.
Now things have changed, times are stranger, standards no longer exist at all. But even in the fairly recent past, some possibly marginal figure would run one of the new memes out on a blog and a month or year later if it was received well (I gusee) it's all over the place. Others failed and became unfindable. The most memorable of these was a google search for "death cult" that retuned, high in the results, something like "the Dems are a death cult because they used the lates mass shooting to advance their gun control agenda. It vanished in a week.
Anyway, it had always seemed to me that Obama would have been a great candidate for such a campaign of well orchestrated fake news. The closer we got to November 2008, the more I expected it to happen. Why didn't the, to my thinking, very likely half dozen young blonde women, nicely paid by Roger Stone, appear with stories of escapades? Why didn't Roger & co, who this time had a real smear campaign operating, drag out ye olde "Hillary's a lesbian" thing? (Typing that just now, something I've never typed before, autocomplete supplied "lesbian" as a choice. Jesus.)
The right wingers have nearly infinite funding, zero conscience or regard for truth and have a long history of dirty tricks. So why not some that might have been expected of them?
Two reasons come to mind:
Oppo research showing no opportunity for such events.
Polling suggesting that the fake news isn't believable.
But each of those reasons can be sseen to be somewhat weak.
I'll be looking for some trial run stuff about Franken.
Unless people grow a brain and start asking the right questions nothing will change. Why the establishment both in the left(?) And the right hate the Clintons so much? Why are they so afraid of another Clinton in WH?
The dossier said the Russians funded the interference campaign with wire transfers to Russian government facilities overseas. Couldn't the wire transfers reported by BuzzFeed be those?
THANK YOU for this post. I've lost my patience with anyone suggesting the left somehow didn't atone for Bill Clinton. It's complete horsepucky. Unless the standard is a woman making an accusation of sexual harrassment/assault is always believed regardless of the evidence, then Jones/Broaddrick/Wiley are simply not credible. And as you so brilliantly point out, believing the three women above means disbelieving women who contradict their stories. So in the Bill Clinton cases, there are some women you have to disbelieve no matter what side you're on. It sure discredits the idea that women must always be believed.
I am too young to have lived through this whole ordeal, but does anyone know why Starr and the OIC themselves were never investigated for abusing their power? Or was it like so many American scandals where it was decided that we should just move on?
Shoot. I also forget to add for all these people chastising the left for not reckoning with Bill Clinton, if they really think this is true, then you have to advocate for Trump resigning immediately. His sexual misdeeds are an order of magnitude greater than the worst accusations against Bill. The fact that I haven't seen the same rash of articles calling for Trump's resignation shows this is all about Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
Goddamn I hate our media.
Caitlin Flannagan, has something in common with a majority of the Al Gore bashers basher brigade back in 2000. Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and Maureen Dowd all belong to an ethnic group that has a higher than average incidence of assault by pedophile priests.
Good points, Joseph.
And yes, as great as Sen. Franken is...yep, I can see this being directed against him (even though the man is a clean slate). Plus never forget that the Berners will still be sending withering fire his way because to them, it's all about getting Sanders elected and who cares if the GOP screw things up even further?
I'd say one reason for the pivot back to Bill Clinton is because it appears that very few in DC and in the media have read Conason and Lyon's THE HUNTING OF THE PRESIDENT or have seen the great documentary based on the book. That book--along with David Brock's BLINDED BY THE RIGHT--exposed the sordid mess that was the GOP's relentless assault on the Clintons during the 1990s. But it also appears that some of the loudest voices on the Left haven't read those books either--see H.A. Goodman, Walker Bragman.
I just half-heard a more believable explanation for the Russian money on the Stephanie Miller Show. I promise to go double check this and report back if I'm just totally wrong when I'm not late for work. What I heard was that there was a Russian election going on and the money could well have been for the purpose of enabling Russian citizens who were outside the country to vote.
Matt Yglasias is engaging in revisionist history concerning the Lewinsky affair as well.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/15/16634776/clinton-lewinsky-resigned
I voted against WJC in the '92 primary, not because of morality, but politics. I figured if the rw machine could trash the bland Mike Dukakis the way they did, his past would be easy fodder for them.
When the word of this scandal broke, I felt gut-punched, and sick at heart. I thought it was worthy of his resignation. But not of impeachment. I thought he was right to resist that. Later, when I found out of the many abuses of the Starr operation, it informed me why he shouldn't have resigned.
I still believe he disgraced his office, and that was a shame. But his boss, ultimately, the American people, didn't favor his ouster.
XI
Thank you for saying what needed to be said about Caitlin Flanagan. I was so angry at some of the women over at Reddit's Gendercritical subreddit because they believed whole the bullshit Flanagan was peddling.
Flanagan knows better, but she is counting on the younger generation, and people who didn't follow the bogus Clinton scandals, to peddle her lies and rewrite history.
Most of the "scandals" were financed by Richard Mellon Scaife via the Arkansas Project and outfits like the Federalist Society, and all were designed for the sole purpose of destabilizing and hamstringing the Clinton administration from doing anything. The GOP and right-wing were motivated by one thing and one thing only: Clinton and Gore posed a threat to the GOP's Southern Strategy, and the GOP couldn't tolerate it.
Monica Lewinsky was a willing participant in her clumsy attempts at bagging the president, as any of us who were around then and followed the story knows. She was the one who went to D.C. for specifically that purpose, bragging to friends about getting her "presidential knee pads." Some are trying to claim that BC was engaging in sexual harassment, but of course he wasn't. In fact, he broke it off for family reasons and had her sent to the Pentagon, whereupon she shot her big mouth to Linda Tripp, and the rest of it is history.
I get sick and tired of having to correct people on this.
OTE, thanks. I can't recall where, but somewhere on the internets there is a quote for Roger Stone in which he gleefully admits that the younger generation doesn't know the details of what happened to Bill Clinton, and thus the right can now re-sell all of the stories that were exposed as bullshit in the 1990s.
XI, I'm with you. I supported Kerrey in '92 precisely because a war hero seemed more impervious to attack than someone like Clinton. I'm STILL pissed at Bill Clinton for sucking up all of the media's attention.
Ysee, I'm not necessarily asking people to be pro-Clinton. I'm saying that if you are going to offer an anti-Clinton argument, do so for non-bullshit reasons.
Caitlin Flanagan update:
In the least surprising development in human history, she is now circling in on her real target: Hillary Clinton.
"The next stage of the Bill Clinton reckoning will be an honest acceptance of Hillary Clinton's complicity."
https://twitter.com/CaitlinPacific/status/930924522995200000
A final note, OTE: You demonstrate my point perfectly. Monica Lewenski now does not say "I was sexually harassed." She says "I fell in love with my boss." That's precisely what she says in her TED talk. Falling in love with your boss -- and having your affections reciprocated -- is NOT a scenario in which a male sexually harasses a female.
For that reason, it should have been utterly out of bounds to ask Clinton about Monica in the Paula Jones case.
When feminists try to argue that Monica was "harassed," they lose me. That kind of argument is not just strained, it's totally insane. It's also very useful to Roger Stonian manipulators.
Look, sex is sex and love is love, and both love and sex will always be messy. People will always do stupid things. People will always get hurt. Hearts will always be broken. But stupidity, hurt and heartbreak do NOT equal sexual harassment -- and those who pretend otherwise are, in their own way, monsters.
here's poor little Caitlin getting her clock cleaned by Colbert in 2006 & 2014:
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/x40hn2/the-colbert-report-caitlin-flanagan
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/wwqhgn/the-colbert-report-caitlin-flanagan
& Joan Walsh on Caitlin:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/yes-caitlin-flanagan-you-_b_20252.html
Anybody who tries to peddle the fiction that Lewinsky was at all a victim of BC is going to be corrected. I am not hesitant to call people liars if they peddle it.
The ONLY reason BC ever let down his guard with her was because of the extreme stress he was going under when the GOP shut down the government over Medicare. I seriously doubt he would have done it otherwise.
The ONLY man who ever victimized her was Kenneth Starr. Period. He ruined a lot of people with his witch hunt of the Clintons.
I loathe Lewinsky because she has not moved on with her life by doing the right thing and being nondescript. She has literally capitalized on her dubious fame, which I think was her motive from the get-go. Remember, she had a good teacher in that regard, and that was her mother, who was also a celebrity groupie.
Boy were you prophetic about Al Franken.
I know it’s just coincidence (do I?), but it’s still a bit puzzling that Al Franken is exposed just hours after you surmised the possibility! Please tell us who’s next…
-Brumel
I guess you called it Joseph:
http://www.kabc.com/2017/11/16/leeann-tweeden-on-senator-al-franken/
Folks, the fulfillment of the Franken "prophecy" freaked even ME out. I chose Franken to illustrate my point because he seemed so unlikely to be caught up in such a scandal.
The reaction on Kos right now seems very troll-ish. There's a "2008" feel about it.
And that's all I'll say about the matter for a day or so. I put a lot of work into that video about the Salvator Mundi, so I'd prefer to keep that post at the top of my blog for a while.
You must have your finger on some kind of universal pulse, Joe. Could not believe that the first thing I read this morning was the Al Franken story. My son called from Philly and said: "Well, they didn't get Menendez (who frankly I have no sympathy for), so now they're after Franken."
Of course, he didn't know the half of it. But it pretty much creeped me out.
You're on a roll. And I did read/view the Salvator Mundi post. Fascinating post.
Peggysue
HA! Maybe you inspired them to go after him... they probably knew about this for a long time really. Anyone else you want to inspire them to bring down...they are all probably worthy prospects. Most men at one point or another, do some thing insanely violating or demeaning to women at some point. Hell - a friend grabbed my tit just the other day, because we are friends???!!! I had to tell him never to do that again. Why should I have to tell a man that, let alone a friend? It's time for men to start growing up- women deserve respect.
I just love how these willfully ignorant so called 3rd Wave Feminists are attacking 2nd Wave Feminists for not attacking Bill Clinton back in the 90's. Guess what, just maybe 2nd Wave Feminists knew Jones, Wiley and Broaddrick weren't credible because they changed their stories from the consensual contact stories they testified to, to harassment, etc... when they became Fox News regulars.
Third Wavers like Traister, etc.. hate 2nd Wave Feminists like Hillary- who actually has accomplished a hell of a lot of things to help millions of girls and women around the world. And inspired millions more- Around 80-90% of the women who turned up for the Women's March were Hillary voters. All the women that ran and won in the Virginia election said Hillary inspired them to run. The majority of the Indivisible chapters around the US are staffed mostly by women who backed Hillary in 2016. This is what the fauxgressive left (Berners and Steiners) and the right wing want to shut down. They don't want a revival of 2nd wave style feminism, a multiracial feminism that can actually change our culture for the better.
What have these 3rd Wave Feminists that hate Hillary so much ever done to help women and girls- nothing. I'm in my early 50's and am a late 2nd wave feminist. In the 2nd wave we knew some women would actively try to undermine liberalism and even feminism, most infamously Phyllis Shafley. (But sometimes by even claiming, at times, they were feminists, like Pagalia, Dowd, Roife, etc...)
Ciarda
I am curious if you think that the 2nd wave supported Hillary so much, how come she didn't receive the majority of the white women vote. I would assume that babyboomers are in the 2nd wave and vote the most.
From a recent article:
Clinton received 43 percent of the white women’s vote in 2016, while Trump took 53 percent, according to exit polls. But Clinton did win a majority of white female college graduates, while Trump won non-college-educated white women.
You want to pit groups of women against each other here, but the fact is that your own generation did not support her. According to Clinton, it was because they were basically subservient to their male counterpart on this election. To dismiss the loss to such an issue, while not addressing her own failings, brings us to the place we are now. FYI-I voted for her, but not because of any ideal... it was because I knew the alternative. I live in a state where my vote really was a throwaway, but I voted for her regardless. I have been a very liberal democrat for years- 50+ so I think I have a right to say, she did not address my issues the way in which it resonated. The party of compromises has always compromised on my issues, but I blindly punch the hole in the D box and hope for the best, because it could be so much worse. Is that a future to look forward to?
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