Some very valid points made in this article:
Trump’s Worst Collusion Isn’t With Russia — It’s With Corporations by Peter Certo
I’ve always been a little skeptical that there’d be a smoking gun about the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. The latest news about Donald Trump, Jr., however, is tantalizingly close.
The short version of the story, revealed by emails the New York Times obtained, is that the president’s eldest son was offered “some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary” and “would be very useful to your father.”
More to the point, the younger Trump was explicitly told this was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Donald, Jr.’s reply? “I love it.”
Trump Jr. didn’t just host that meeting at Trump Tower. He also brought along campaign manager Paul Manafort and top Trump confidante (and son-in-law) Jared Kushner.
We still don’t have evidence they coordinated with Russian efforts to release Clinton campaign emails, spread “fake news,” or hack state voting systems. But at the very least, the top members of Trump’s inner circle turned up to get intelligence they knew was part of a foreign effort to meddle in the election.
–snip–
Perhaps. But it’s worth asking: Who’s done the real harm here? Some argue it’s not the Russians after all.
“The effects of the crime are undetectable,” the legendary social critic Noam Chomsky says of the alleged Russian meddling, “unlike the massive effects of interference by corporate power and private wealth.”
That’s worth dwelling on.
Many leading liberals suspect, now with a little more evidence, that Trump worked with Russia to win his election. But we’ve long known that huge corporations and wealthy individuals threw their weight behind the billionaire.
That gambit’s paying off far more handsomely for them — and more destructively for the rest of us — than any scheme by Putin.
The evidence is hiding in plain sight.
The top priority in Congress right now is to move a health bill that would gut Medicaid and throw at least 22 million Americans off their insurance — while loosening regulations on insurance companies and cutting taxes on the wealthiest by over $346 billion.
As few as 12 percent of Americans support that bill, but the allegiance of its supporters isn’t to voters — it’s plainly to the wealthy donors who’d get those tax cuts.Meanwhile, majorities of Americans in every single congressional district support efforts to curb local pollution, limit carbon emissions, and transition to wind and solar. And majorities in every single state back the Paris climate agreement.
Yet even as scientists warn large parts of the planet could soon become uninhabitable, the fossil fuel-backed Trump administration has put a climate denier in charge of the EPA, pulled the U.S. out of Paris, and signed legislation to let coal companies dump toxic ash in local waterways.
–snip–
Elsewhere, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and other architects of the housing crash are advising Trump on financial deregulation, while student debt profiteers set policy at the Department of Education.
Chomsky complains that this sort of collusion is often “not considered a crime but the normal workings of democracy.” While Trump has taken it to new heights, it’s certainly a bipartisan problem.If Trump’s people did work with Russia to undermine our vote, they should absolutely be held accountable. But the politicians leading the charge don’t have a snowball’s chance of redeeming our democracy unless they’re willing to take on the corporate conspirators much closer to home.
So here we jolly well are. Buried in an ongoing Deep State publicity effort to pin Trump and the Russians…thus killing two birds with one stone and ramping up the Military-Industrial Complex and its obscene profits…while doing absolutely nothing to change the corporate legal theft system. (Legal graft, really. Big Corp pays to get politicians elected that will put its interests over those of the citizenry, and the pols cash in while in office and also after.)
This is a bipartisan system. The media barely cover it because they are owned by the same interests that control the pols and it is perfectly evident that most pols want nothing to do with it.
Meanwhile, back at the pond…
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah about how the Good Guys are finally getting close to pinning the Bad Guys.
Over this!!!???
Read the emails. Unless there is surveilled evidence that this is not the whole story, it’s just a bunch of second and third-rate idiot hustlers wasting each others’ time.
Once again, I must ask…
AG
Quick observation, AG.
I remember you, specifically, discussing in ’15/’16 that the best way to take down Trump was to discuss his connections with the mafia, since you knew, for sure, that he had them.
If you take a step back from everything, and remember that the country Russia isn’t Red/Communist/Socialist/Liberal, and is instead outright right-wing fascist leaning neo-feudal, than you can see that the Russia story is, in essence, how Trump is connected to the mafia, albeit the Russian mob d/b/a the Russian government.
Russia is a fascist neofeudal state where oligarchs literally own and operate almost every aspect of the country, with a literal, Capo de Capi in Putin. They aren’t liberal/left/progressive heroes just tryin’ to get along and help the people. And just because Russia isn’t reeling as it was in the early 90s isn’t proof that Putin is a hero. Mussolini made the trains run on time. Hitler got Germany working again. Blah blah blah.
This isn’t about how Russia and Putin changed election result tabulations. It’s how Trump and the mafia d/b/a the Russian government have been stealing and laundering money, and how the mafia d/b/a the Russian government helped ol’ Strongman Trump secure a political office that allows him to:
The Trump-Russia saga is basically the Trump-mafia story that you were telling us about year(s) ago. It isn’t neocentrist neoliberalcons making shit up out of whole cloth because we hate socialism, love finance capitalism that is destroying this country and society, and want a shooting war with Russia…all while hoping we can install Killery into office.
It’s the Trump-mafia story. And it includes Manhattan land purchases. Straw companies. Hits on rivals and rats. Laundered money. And, a foreign government.
While you surely don’t have to jump to the conclusion that Russia got Trump elected and that he really only had about 42,946 total votes with Russia rigging the rest, you certainly shouldn’t ignore the fact that the Trump-mafia story you told us about is actually ongoing and being made public, just with less US mafia members and a whole lot more Russian mafia members who are currently also d/b/a the Russian government.
Good point, n1cholas. But I repeat…show me the beef.
There was real beef available with the U.S. mob and Trump. Lots of it. There is not a casino in the U.S. that doesn’t have serious mob ties, plus all of the skimming going on in the construction of Trump’s many buildings, plus the Roy Cohn mob heritage right down the line to Roger Stone and . And I am quite sure that the same powers who are running this Russiagate game on Trump were well aware of all of this. But they chose not to use it.
Why? I don’t know.
Conjecture?
Sure.
U.S. mob ties right on up into Congress, into both major parties and even the White House. Into the Wall St. banks, too. For example, do not forget…the whole Iran/Contra, drugs-for-guns, crack-to-the-ghettos thing was mob-based or at least mob-connected. Just for starters. The assassination years, the mob influence that got JFK elected. They could blow history right out of the water with a few well-placed leaks.
And/or…Deep State forces wanting to continue to demonize Russia in order to use that demonization as more fodder for the PermaWar scam.
For whatever reasons, decisions were made. They were not decisions based on guilt or innocence; they were based on political expediency. Trump threatens the Deep State’s balance. Part of that balance comes from an acceptance of the dark side of U.S. life. Bet on it.
Russia?
Who better to blame?
China?
How much U.S. debt do they hold, again? Well over a trillion? Plus they may be the only state that can talk with some force to North Korea. Maybe not such a good idea to mess with them.
So Russia it is.
AG
Why not Iran? they are always a convenient whipping boy.
Minor league compared to Russia.
AG
Also, too:
Russian-American lobbyist says he was in Trump son’s meeting
By DESMOND BUTLER and CHAD DAY
Today
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Russian-American lobbyist says he attended a June 2016 meeting with President Donald Trump’s son, marking another shift in the account of a discussion that was billed as part of a Russian government effort to help the Republican’s White House campaign.
Rinat Akhmetshin confirmed his participation to The Associated Press on Friday. Akhmetshin has been reported to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies, a characterization he dismisses as a “smear campaign.” He told the AP he served in the Soviet military in a unit that was part of counterintelligence but was never formally trained as a spy…
…While Trump Jr. has confirmed that Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya was in the meeting, he did not disclose Akhmetshin’s presence…
…During the meeting, Akhmetshin said Veselnitskaya brought with her a plastic folder with printed-out documents that detailed what she believed was the flow of illicit funds to the Democratic National Committee. Veselnitskaya presented the contents of the documents to the Trump associates and suggested that making the information public could help the Trump campaign, he said.”
But…
What if there was a flow of illicit funds into the Clinton campaign? From wherever?
Then is this whole set of actions by the Trumpists treasonous or is it patriotic?
Just sayin’…
Consider the following thought experiment:
If someone…anyone who might actually have access to real information, no matter from what country that information originated…approached you personally, centerfielddj, and said that they had seriously damaging info regarding Trump, would you not take a look at it or at least refer them to the proper authorities? (If indeed there remain any “proper authorities” in the PostFactual version of the U.S.)
Of course you would.
You are anti-Trump.
But what if it was about HRC, the Clinton Foundation or the DNC?
Hmmmm…???
That’s quite a box you have drawn for yourself, and quite a box that the media and the neocentrist DemocRatpublicans have drawn as well.
Try to climb out of it any which way you can.
Except this way:
Riiiiiiiight…and Santa really does live at the North Pole, too.
WTFU.
AG
Yes, the Russian Federation acted very patriotically. Now I understand. LOL
Here’s an historical response to this sort of moral quandry, as explained by Mitt Romney’s 2012 POTUS campaign manager:
stuart stevens
@stuartpstevens
When Gore campaign was sent Bush debate brief book, they called FBI. If foreign interests offer you info on former SOS, you call the FBI.
8:47 PM – 9 Jul 2017
If you want to keep this stuff up, godspeed, I suppose. You’ve lost perspective in a thoroughgoing way now. Taking a solid position in favor of the basest treasonous and deceptive behavior is a bad look for anyone, but that’s just my view.
What if you do not trust the FBI? The FBI was…and remains…an integral part of a Permanent Government that has been quite publicly and solidly against Trump from the moment that he began his primary campaign. Now…one might say that this is because he is “a loser, a clown, a fool, a crook,” etc. etc. etc. and be done with it. I mean…that’s basically what the PermaGov and its media have been running for almost a year and a half on him, and look at all the good that did. Here he still is, the face of the U.S. to the rest of the world. Good job, fellas and gals. Good job.
I do not believe that a system that tolerated…and even promoted…such creatures as Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger and George W. Bush (Nasty motherfuckers all, in their own individual ways, and with the exceptions of Nixon and Kissinger stupid to a fault.) would gang up against a character like Trump unless he threatened their monopoly. Which he indeed did and continues to do so.
This is not about a weak candidate like Gore obeying the rules…obeying them to the point of essentially acceding to a stolen election. This is about a power player who wants in on the scam. His way. He’s juking and jiving every which way he can to gain even the smallest advantages. That’s been his modus operandi in business and it’s the same now.
Give the hostile F.B.I. possibly damaging info on his opponent? He might just as well send it to the DNC all gift-wrapped and give up the element of surprise.
Will his lack of understanding about how the so-called “laws” work bite him in the ass?
Maybe.
Or is this just “Tempest In A Teapot #67.5?”
The media hype is screaming “Hottest Thing Ever!!!” about Trump Jr’s meeting.
Will this last even two news cycles?
We shall see.
Won’t we.
AG
With red hot takes like these, why might a person develop a strong view that you are objectively, enthusiastically pro-Trump? Gosh, it’s a mystery.
Trump and his wrecking crew could have done everything the public and journalistic investigations end up discovering, and you will not believe it. You will not believe it, even though you concede that everything that has been revealed so far fits with what we know of Trump’s character. This eternally fixed perspective allows you to avoid self-critique of any sort as you sail on with your convenient, hermetically sealed delusions.
Keep it up. Still doing great. Such a moral paragon.
As I have been patiently explaining here, being anti-Deep State does not equate to being pro-Trump…except of course in a two-dimensional, stick-figure world.
That is roughly like saying that since I do not want to die by fire, I am pro-drowning.
WTFU.
AG
Arthur’s denials come off as increasingly unbelievable.
Would it be wrong if Trump’s campaign conspired with a foreign adversary to make maximum propagandistic use of deceitfully presented information, information stolen from supporters of their political opponents?
No, it would be right, Arthur says. No second thoughts, even after having observed all Trump and his crew have wrought.
Arthur would love to have his personal information stolen, sifted through, and selectively and deceptively disseminated in a public campaign. A sophisticated, malicious effort of that sort would paint quite the horrible picture of him.
No, it would be right, Arthur says.
I sense Arthur will bring the “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear” defense. The morally rotten position of despots and their enablers throughout history.
Arthur wants Trump to persevere and succeed, even though he now knows what the President has in mind for the nation. He has made this point over and over and over and over and over and over again, including in this very diary. Make of that what we will.
You write:
Another thought experiment…
But first a caveat. Are we at war with Russia? No, despite the heroic efforts of Victoria Nuland at the behest of Barack Obama and the recent Democratic administration. No. We are not . Then how is Russia a “foreign adversary?” I anticipate an answer somewhere around “Well…they are surveilling the U.S.” OK. Do you really think that Israel is not “surveilling” the U.S.? Really? Are they then our adversary, too? Everybody is surveilling everybody else, centerfielddj. Are we then in an adversarial state with every other technologically advanced government in the world? A valid answer to that question might be “Yes. We are.”, at which point absolutely no information that comes from another government should be trusted. There goes the “Five Eyes” program, to say the least.
Anyway…on with the thought experiment:
How about “Would it be wrong if HRC’s campaign (or its continuation, the Deep State efforts to get rid of Trump) conspired with a foreign government to make maximum propagandistic use of deceitfully presented information, information stolen from supporters of their political opponents, but information that was demonstrably true?”
Hmmmm…???
Because the whole “Dodgy Dossier” thing was just that. Supposed info from Russian sources supplied by a British spook. (Go here and here for more on that account.)
Except of course that it was not “demonstrably true”…or if it was, that truth was never publicized by our spooky friends in Washington.
Take a nice glass of ice water, centerfield. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.
You are too valuable a stooge for presenting the ideas that I am trying to promote.
Thank you for your efforts.
I don’t know what I would do without you.
Later…
AG
Yes, you’re doing great! It’s true.
Please, fill this page with tens of thousands more words and your delightful graphics. We can all clearly see that the community rejects BooMan’s position on this and other issues in favor of your own. Look at the abundant evidence that this is so.
Look about us!
I’m sure none of us will find your next “thought experiment” thoroughly repellent and in bad faith. Only one way to find out! Bring it, lengthily.
Bring it?
I will.
Bet on it.
AG
3 June 2016 – Mr Goldstone to Mr Trump Jr
Emin [Agalarov, a Russian pop star represented by Goldstone] just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting.
The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras [a Moscow-based developer who tried to partner with Trump in a hotel project] this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary [Clinton] and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.
This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.
What do you think is the best way to handle this information and would you be able to speak to Emin about it directly?
I can also send this info to your father via Rhona [presumably Rhona Graff, Trump’s longtime executive assistant], but it is ultra sensitive so wanted to send to you first.
Mr Trump Jr to Mr Goldstone
Thanks Rob I appreciate that. I am on the road at the moment but perhaps I just speak to Emin first. Seems we have some time and if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer. Could we do a call first thing next week when I am back?
6 June 2016 – Mr Goldstone to Mr Trump Jr
Let me know when you are free to talk with Emin by phone about this Hillary info – you had mentioned early this week so wanted to try to schedule a time and day. Best to you and your family.
Mr Trump Jr to Mr Goldstone
Rob could we speak now?
Mr Goldstone to Mr Trump Jr
Let me track him down in Moscow. What number he could call?
Mr Trump Jr to Mr Goldstone
My cell.
Mr Goldstone to Mr Trump Jr
He’s on stage in Moscow but should be off within 20 minutes so I am sure can call.
Mr Trump Jr to Mr Goldstone
Rob thanks for the help.
7 June 2016 – Mr Goldstone to Mr Trump Jr
Hope all is well. Emin asked that I schedule a meeting with you and the Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow for this Thursday. I believe you are aware of the meeting – and so wondered if 3pm or later on Thursday works for you? I assume it would be at your office.
Mr Trump Jr to Mr Goldstone
How about 3 at our offices? Thanks Rob appreciate you helping set it up.
Mr Goldstone to Mr Trump Jr
Perfect … I won’t sit in on the meeting, but will bring them at 3pm and introduce you etc. I will send the names of the two people meeting with you for security when I have them later today.
Mr Trump Jr to Mr Goldstone
Great. It will likely be Paul Manafort [Donald Trump’s campaign manager] my brother in law [White House adviser Jared Kushner] and me. 725 Fifth Ave 25th floor.
8 June 2016 – Mr Goldstone to Mr Trump Jr
Good morning. Would it be possible to move tomorrow meeting to 4pm as the Russian attorney is in court until 3 I was just informed.
Mr Trump Jr to Mr Goldstone
Yes Rob I could do that unless they wanted to do 3 today instead … just let me know and I’ll lock it in either way.
Mr Goldstone to Mr Trump Jr
They can’t do today as she hasn’t landed from Moscow. 4pm is great tomorrow.
Mr Trump Jr then forwards the entire exchange to Mr Manafort and Mr Kushner under the subject heading “FW: Russia – Clinton – private and confidential”
Mr Trump Jr to Mr Manafort and Mr Kushner
Meeting got moved to 4 tomorrow at my offices.
“This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump…”.
“The effects of the crime are undetectable,” the legendary social critic Noam Chomsky says of the alleged Russian meddling, “unlike the massive effects of interference by corporate power and private wealth.”
Well, legendary or not, Chomsky has made what is an untestable claim. We don’t get to re-run the election campaign and the election itself without Russian meddling.
Nor do get to re-run the election campaign and the election itself without corporate meddling.
Now really.,..let me ask you:
Which one of those two U.S. election meddling possibilities has been more serious over the past 50 years?
Please!!!
AG
RollingStone Authenticates My Analysis – Thank you!
Re: GOP Operative Peter Smith’s Death Ruled A Suicide
Truly a final moment of fame!
Was his exit choreographed? By whom?
What was his true conviction in the matter?
He was aware of Trump’s troubles with investigations
He knew the Mike Flynn story with Russia
Peter Smith was known to work on his own, had the funds for it
Was he really anti Russia, anti Putin?
Intent to undermine the Trump presidency
One last act of subversion
He failed in contacts with hackers on the Dark Net to recover the Clinton emails
See my follow-up diary where Peter Smith is linked to the alt-right
○ Peter Smith Tapped Alt-Right to Access Dark Net
Charles C. Johnson said he also suggested that Peter Smith get in touch with Andrew Auernheimer, a hacker who goes by the alias ‘Weev’ and has collaborated with Johnson in the past. Auernheimer–who was released from federal prison in 2014 after having a conviction for fraud and hacking offenses vacated [on appeal – May 2014] and subsequently moved to Ukraine.
This group is alt-right, anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine.
IMO fits handily in the collusion with Steve Bannon, the renegade inside the White House
○ Trump donor ‘kills himself’ after revealing he tried to get Hillary Clinton’s emails from Russian hackers | The Independent |