The president is fortunate that few people will be thinking about his craven and traitorous performance in Helsinki when they go to the polls, and I don’t think the Mueller investigation will be weighing too heavily on their minds, either. That’s a shame.
But I’m not surprised the president suddenly wants to talk about anything other than his connections to Russia or the many former employees of his who are now cooperating witnesses. Still, he seems to require a meeting with Vladimir Putin from time to time in exactly the same way an informant occasionally needs to meet with his intelligence officer.
As soon as the midterm elections are over, the Mueller team will begin unveiling much of what they have uncovered in the previous two months after turning Paul Manafort, and that means Putin and Trump need to be of one mind.
It wouldn’t be prudent to meet before the people vote, but it would be reckless to wait until after they need to respond to the new revelations.
So, this was as predictable as the sun rising in the East.
White House national security adviser John Bolton said Tuesday that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to meet in Paris, days after November’s midterm elections.
Bolton, following a one-on-one meeting with Putin in Moscow, confirmed that the Russian president suggested the leaders meet to continue discussions between the two, adding that they agreed to the date of Nov. 11 in Paris, which coincides with the Armistice Day commemoration.
“I said yes, in fact, that President Trump would look forward to meeting with him in Paris,” Bolton, who has been in Moscow for two days of high-level talks, told reporters at a press conference Tuesday.
Trump will get his instructions, just as he did in their private meetings in Germany, Vietnam and Finland.
In Germany, they colluded on the so-called Russian adoptions story in anticipation of the Trump Tower story breaking. In Vietnam, Trump announced that Putin was innocent because he had convincingly denied his involvement. In Finland, Trump took Putin’s side against his own intelligence community. In Paris, they will have new talking points and a new strategy to deal with the forthcoming Mueller report.
This time, hopefully, an incoming Democratic Congress can probe this nakedly conspiratorial relationship so that it doesn’t fall down the memory hole of the American people like the previous examples did.
Putin’s Gambit obviously succeeded far beyond the wildest dreams of the most hallucinatory KGB colonel on the force.
With Russian help, the 2016 election devolved onto our anti–democratic electoral college, producing yet another democratically-illegitimate (i.e. Repub) prez, further undermining our Constitution in the eyes of informed audiences both domestic and foreign. The reckless authoritarianism of the unqualified ignoramus conman who was the recipient of the Russian aid (and his corporatist party) then massively compounded the disaster by governing as though Der Trumper won a substantial popular-vote victory, taking a wrecking ball to every initiative of a (popularly elected) two term Dem prez and effectively erasing Obama’s very existence.
Finally, by using these same anti-democratic mechanisms, the National Trumpalists have installed a democratically-illegitimate 5 man “conservative” Supreme Court majority, despite the fact that 3 million more citizens voted against the sort of rightwing “justices” which Der Trumper promised the nation. The wrecking of the Court will ultimately result in the effective dis-unification of the country and destruction of the centuries-long effort to found a nation based on the (legitimate) Rule of Law. All in all, a fantastic and historic defeat for the US of A. It will engage the efforts of historians for generations.
How exactly Putin’s KGB victory really helps the crappily-governed New Russian Empire is a mystery, but one must admit that it constitutes rubles very well spent. Presumably the handler/informant tete-a-tete in Paris will focus on scrapping the intermediate missile treaty that St Reagan and Gorbachev negotiated from a position of American strength. Putin wants to free his hands of it, and head Neo-con von Bolton sees it as a great category of new weapons on which to waste extraordinary amounts of our endlessly bloated “defense” appropriations. Perhaps Trumper will be given a “Mr. Prez” coloring book while the actual leaders hammer out a deal.
Or perhaps the missile treaty will simply be cover for the team’s strategy/collusion on how to address the reappearance of Mueller?
Both?
Please tell me, Martin, because I really don’t understand. Why are Democrats nationwide not connecting Trump’s name to the word “Traitor” ever chance they get? Why is this not a meme by now? Why are we so fucking frightened and politically incompetent?
Simple. Calling Trump a traitor, while true, gets them no new Democratic Lefty Indies and it further alienates Trumpers and other Republicans. IOW, there’s no upside to this before Mueller’s report is out.
Why should “we” care about alienating them when they do a damn good job of it themselves with their behavior. Put another way, clearly, there isn’t anything “we” can do that will make them less alienated, other than not just agree with them 100%, but become them.
Maybe he’ll stay, depending on how the vote turns out! Or fly to Sochi and stay there!
It’s incredible, the corruption is right out in the open. If a Democrat did 10% of what Trump did in the last week, he would already be driven out of town.
Putin and the Saudi’s are just trolling us now. They probably have a bet on which of them can jerk Trump’s leash the hardest. I’m not kidding.
.
It’s actually pretty simple. Mitch McConnell has long since understood what we all knew before the election: that Trump was a faux populist and was never going to enact a single one of the things he promised to do for the ordinary people. He was and is a lifelong criminal wannabee plutocrat.
So Mitch is desperately hoping the GOP retains the HOR so the GOP can destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and what remains of voting rights and installing hard right judges for the next two years. That ultra dystopian prediction, which he made openly yesterday can only be prevented by taking over the House and stopping the madness at least at that level.
Mueller’s report will not officially see the light of day but I predict that the juiciest parts will leak out continuously Deep Throat style over the following two years.
Mueller uses talking indictments to share information, that’s how he has been communicating whatever he wants to disclose.
I think that Mueller is perfectly aware of the threats to his investigation and has probably taken more steps than we can imagine to counter them.
According to Rachel last night, Bolton sat passively while Putin made fun of the American sheild (said something about how the eagle has eaten all the olives and has just branches left) and has bragged openly in public speeches about how he has complete control over Trump.
What to make of this? first Soras
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/nyregion/clinton-obama-explosive-device.html
Explosive Devices Found in Mail Sent to Hillary Clinton and Obama
Civility!
The Angry Left!