Whitaker delivered what I expected -- stonewalling and lies, or truth so carefully parceled as to be tantamount to lying. So let's ignore that.
But the Bezos blackmail scandal is the real shit.
First: Jeff Bezos handled this thing the only way blackmail can be handled, by saying "Print and be damned." Though intensely private by nature, I would have made the same call. If the price of bringing down Donald Trump were publication of a picture displaying...er...the reason why this blog bears the name it bears, so be it. The inevitable comparisons to the lighthouse at Alexandria wouldn't hurt my feelings too much. Besides, I've reached the age when I might like a memento.
Second: Phooey on anyone who claims that this vulgar ploy does not constitute blackmail. Abstruse legal arguments be damned: The law is what a jury says it is, and any sane juror will recognize what's going on here. David Pecker makes Charles Augustus Milverton look like a child.
Newsfolk keep asking: Why are so many Republican congressfolk so respectful of Trump, even though these same congress-critters privately say that they can't stand the guy? The usual explanations don't suffice. I am convinced that GOP politicians genuflect before their papaya-hued pope because they all have secrets. The evidence is probably locked away in David Pecker's safe. If Pecker had the goods on Bezos, he probably has even gooder goods on Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and the rest.
(I still suspect that Devin Nunes was on that boat. Click click. 'You are now in our power, Mr. Nunes.')
Spot the spook. The real question: When Gavin de Becker -- as formidable an expert as one can imagine -- said that the messages came from a "government entity," did he mean our government?
Don't toss out that notion. If de Becker meant a foreign government, he should have used that word. I've been saying for years that a faction of our own intelligence community has aided Trump's rise to power. The "spooks vs. Trump" framing -- so beloved of Malcolm Nance and the MSNBC crowd -- simply doesn't square with what we know.
Remember, both the DNI and the head of the CIA are Trump picks, and Trump always asks for a loyalty oath. The current head of the NSA is Mike Rogers, an Obama pick, but he has to share information with other agencies when required.
There's also the possibility that Bezos was screwed over by an entity which, like Schrodinger's feline, both is and is not part of a western intelligence service. Cambridge Analytica -- still existent under other nomenclature -- is basically an appendage of MI6.
And then we must consider Erik Prince's proposal to set up a pro-Trump "private" spy shop.
The founder of the controversial military contracting firm Blackwater, Erik Prince, and his allies lobbied contacts inside the administration to provide the CIA with a private network of intelligence contractors, according to a US official with knowledge of the proposal.Can that same official speak for DIA, or for any other intelligence group operating within the Pentagon?
"This idea is going nowhere," the official said and stressed neither the agency nor the director of the CIA is or was ever considering the proposal.
What of the Israelis? A good possibility, that. Perhaps not Mossad per se -- they don't seem overjoyed with Trump these days -- but consider Black Cube, the "private" Israeli spy shop. As we all know, Harvey Weinstein used the services of Black Cube. Pecker and Weinstein were (and probably still are) close friends.
Nevertheless, the smart betting right now is that the "government entity" is Saudi Arabia's intelligence service. Here's what Bezos had to say about that:
Mr. Pecker and his company have also been investigated for various actions they’ve taken on behalf of the Saudi Government... After Mr. Trump became president, he rewarded Mr. Pecker’s loyalty with a White House dinner to which the media executive brought a guest with important ties to the royals in Saudi Arabia... Several days ago, an AMI leader advised us that Mr. Pecker is “apoplectic” about our investigation. For reasons still to be better understood, the Saudi angle seems to hit a particularly sensitive nerve.We know that Trump is in deep with the Saudis. We know that Pecker published that bizarre glossy publication which constituted an act of verbal fellatio performed on MBS. That publication made no business sense and thus must make some other kind of sense.
Takeover. All of which brings us to Trump's tweet from last month.
So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible handsAt the time, everyone marveled at the spectacle of Donald Trump -- a man who has cheated on all of his wives -- scolding Bezos for committing adultery. But the key phrase is this: "Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands."
I'd love to play poker with Donald Trump. He's the kind of guy who would shout: "Wow. Three nines! I'm gonna go for a full house!"
That remark about placing the WP in "more responsible hands" means that this whole thing -- the Bezos divorce, the blackmail, all of it -- is all part of a plot to wrest away control of the WP. Trump plans to transform the WP into The Daily Caller (or maybe Fox News).
The woman who broke up the Bezos marriage is former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. Her brother Michael is pals with Roger Stone. Coincidence? I think not. I don't claim to have the full story or even a proper theory. But my gut tells me: No, that can't be a coincidence.
Admit it: Your gut is telling you the same thing.
My gut is also telling me that Pecker might have been promised the WP as a reward for loyalty.
How does this scandal link up with the Virginia scandals? The connection is both simple and profound. Trump intends to stay in power the same way Putin does it: Kompromat, kompromat, kompromat.
However much you may hate Northam and Fairfax, the fact remains that their scandals benefit the Republicans. It is therefore fair to presume that they were targeted by the ratfuckers.
You must also understand that absolutely everyone who is running or will run for the Democratic nomination is open to blackmail or manipulation or smears.
Every. Last. One.
Including the one you like best. What's happening to Northam and Fairfax right now is precisely what will hit your favorite Dem -- at the worst possible moment -- should he or she win the nomination. Don't you dare think otherwise. Don't kid yourself.
We all have secrets. We all have flaws.
Even if a candidate is a saint, the saint was probably associated at one time with someone now willing to tell a lie in exchange for a paid-off mortgage. Or maybe that associate has legal problems which he desperately wants to go away.
People can be manipulated into telling lies about any Democrat. Those lies can be "backstopped" (as the spooks say) by seemingly-incontrovertible evidence.
Nobody is immune to blackmail and smears. I am not. You are not. Your favorite candidate is not.
It is no accident that "kompromat politics" became such a powerful force in this country at the same time the Democratic party embraced a zero-tolerance policy for any and all sins touching on sexual or racial issues. For years now, a purity hysteria has beset Kos and DU and all the other prog sites. That hysteria is, I beleive, the work of trolls operating out of St. Petersburg.
Or maybe they were recruited on 4chan. Perhaps they're Nazis. The bottom line: They're not real progressives.
They're working for Trump, chump.
Don't think otherwise. Not even if they hit all your emotional buttons and tell you precisely what you want to hear.
How to fight back. Kompromat is a powerful weapon. The only way to render it harmless is to embrace a (TEMPORARY) policy of radical forgiveness.
If a candidate has a D next to his name, forgive. No matter what kind of racial or sexual sin that person is said to have committed: Forgive.
Automatically presume that the accusation is nothing more than a Roger Stonian trick. It probably is. Remember Franken.
And even if it is not a trick: Now is not the time for purity tests. Forgive.
Let me stress that this policy of radical forgiveness should be a temporary measure. Once the Trumpian menace is removed, we can go back to the purity tests and circular firing squads.
But not now.
Before you howl at me, let me ask you a simple question: Do you believe in science?
If you do, then you know that the threat of global warming is worse than we thought. Thus, we must protect any and all political figures who are on the right side of that issue, even if that person allegedly did or said something obnoxious. Averting ecological catastrophe trumps all other concerns.
Personally, I will support any Dem right now. (Bernie is not a Democrat.)
Suppose we were to find out a promjnent Dem sent out an email containing these words: "You know what I really want to do? I want to kill that guy Joseph Cannon. Seriously. I'm gonna spend a million bucks to retain the services of the world's best hit man. Cannon's gotta go!" Even then, even then, I would say: Forgive. Support the Dem no matter what.
Again: We're talkin' TEMPORARY. That all-forgiving stance will change the moment this nation transcends Trumpism.
7 comments:
The word you were looking for in the first graf is "parsed"
Forget about whether the conduct violates Federal Law, the conduct violates the California sextortion law. The email was sent to Beso's lawyer, Singer, in California, therefore California law applies.
On Target Post. The controversy over Black Face is ridiculous on several grounds. The act of putting on Black Face should not be the issue. The issue should be WHY the black face was being done. Posing as a Rapper is a form of flattery, unless the person was doing derogatory things. Wanting to look like Michael Jackson and do the Moonwalk is not racist. Holy crap Jackson was an Icon. It's almost like Minorities are saying, don't you dare to pretend to be like me, even if its done out of respect and reverence. I find that mindset offensive.
This all goes back to Al Jolson. I learned of Al Jolson growing up. To this day I don't know what Al Jolson was trying to do. Was he doing Black Impersonations so people would laugh at him? I remember his Mammy, Oh Mammy routine being replicated by others. I was very young when I saw it, I never equated that the impersonations were being done to make fun of black people. When Rich Little did impersonations of many political figures, were people laughing at the person being impersonated, or were they marveling at the skill that Rich Little could mimic others?
Maybe because I grew up in an Italian Family and no one talked about American Culture at the Dinner Table I am just unaware. Was BlackFace intent to make fun of African Americans, or was it a case by case basis?
i did my own research. The History of Black Face was Derogatory. But it should be noted that MOST performers were not held in high regard no matter how they looked. At the time of Black Face, Being A Dance Hall Girl meant a woman could never really marry or have a family unless she was able to hide her past as a Dance Hall Girl. She would have to move to another State and start over hoping she would not run into someone from her past.
Here's a concept to consider, Nobody felt safe, and making fun of others was about the only way people 2 hundred years ago felt safe.
The Court Jester was for the amusement of the King and the Royal Court. Today's comedians roots descend from the Court Jester. What if descendants of Court Jesters demanded the end of comedy performances because it reminded them of the hurt from their own generational past?
Elitists are missing am amazing transformation. Caucasians respectfully emulating the same group of people they savagely laughed at 2 centuries earlier is remarkable, in a good way. I have no desire to see anyone in Black Face, I think its stupid and it takes away economic opportunities from African Americans when others pose as them. However if the posing is of someone held in high regard by all, then that's called publicity.
So as shows like Saturday Night Live continue to splain why the act of putting on Black Face in the 80's is a crime and should be punished today even if the Black Face was not in any way meant as a slight to African Americans, Megyn Kelly's firing was ground zero for overzealous persecution of a person's past.
That's pretty interesting research. For my part, I'm not sure that using dark makeup to do a Michael Jackson impression is any worse than Michael Jackson doing God-knows-what to lighten his own face. (I've heard that he wanted to look like Elizabeth Taylor. Of course, one hears all sorts of things about Jackson.)
I seem to recall that, back in the 1970s, there was a black comic who did a very good impression of Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker. And he wore white makeup when he did it.
In the world of opera, black singers are usually chosen to play Otello nowadays, but not too long ago the choice was made based purely on the boxoffice value of a "name" performer, which meant that white singers often played the role. Makeup was necessary simply because race is mentioned in the script. On the other hand, decades ago, Leontyne Price played the lead role (a nun) in "Dialogue of the Carmelites," set in France during the Revolution. There was no makeup. The audience just accepted the idea of a black nun at that time and place.
Of course, theater is more abstract that film, and the audience is more likely to go along with such things. A black Carmen or Tosca wouldn't even be noticed these days. On the other hand, a black Brunhilde might elicit a few nervous comments.
Kathleen Kim's performance as Madame Mao in "Nixon in China" is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mtMI_huRtY) Nobody else comes close. She's Korean, and most Americans would see no problem with a Korean playing a Chinese person. But someone in China or Korea might see things differently!
Well, Elvis Presley sang in black face (Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, All Shook Up, etc.). The composer of All Shook Up, Otis Blackwell, recorded demos for Elvis that Elvis and his combo imitated to the extent you couldn't tell them apart.
Chris Matthews introduced his broadcast the other day, "A picture has surfaced of the governor..." as though the yearbook photo just swam up out of the scum all by itself. He didn't bother to note the rightwing scum that dug it up! Thus our supposedly "left-leaning" media is the happy helpmeet to the slime slingers, just as they were happy to feature hacked DNC emails in 2016, never mind the source.
Post a Comment