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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Reds Under The Bed

Reds Under The Bed

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The non-revelation that Vladimir Putin actively tried to select the next US President — and succeeded — has been pretty well covered by now.  I just want to add one question that’s been bugging me all day:

What did the Trump campaign do, and when did they do it?

We do know a few things.  Michael Flynn was both a national security advisor to the Trump campaign and has ties to the Russian propaganda apparatus.  Former Trump campaign head Paul Manafort has worked for Russia and allied states, and has a rich, long-held trove of contacts with the state apparatus there.  Donald Trump himself famously asked Putin to hack Hillary’s emails.  I’m sure if we had the same access to Trump’s, his campaign’s and the RNC’s communications that we had to Hillary’s and her team’s, we could well have some very interesting reading.

Short of that, it seems a basic question to ask of the Trump circle.  Did any of them conspire with a foreign power to manipulate (steal) the election?

The fundamental crisis we face, of course, is that a foreign power fucked with our election, which ended in the result sought by an adversary.  But while that’s the obvious disaster,  it gets worse if the Russians had active co-conspirators within the Trump camp.  That moves them from illegitimate, to traitors.

513px-giotto-kissofjudas

That may seem a stretch — but given the extremely well documented Russian connections that obtained in the Trump campaign through the crucial months of the general election, it’s seems to me that it’s imperative we get real answers as to who did what to whom over here.  This is where I hope Marty Barron has his people working (I’ve given up on Dean Baquet).  And I hope there are folks at the CIA pissed off enough to help out.

Whoever does it, this really is a time that puts the idea of the elite press to the test.  Either they cover Trump and all his high crimes and misdemeanors, or they give up, and the American experiment lurches to its increasingly imminent collapse.

I live not in expectation, but in hope.*

*Hope is the thing with feathers. The one Dick Cheney kept trying to shoot out of the sky.

 

Image: Giotto, The Arrest of Christ (Kiss of Judas), betw. 1306 and 1308.

Reader Interactions

75Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    Posted this downstairs, but it was late in the thread. I wonder if Putin really knew that taking over the USA would be so easy? With Tillerson as SoS, sanctions are over, and Vlad gets what he most wanted, just like that.

  2. 2.

    Mary G

    I am tempted to give up hope but determined not to do so. You’d think Max Boot, Chernoff, and the fifty+ other foreign-policy Republican #NeverTrumpers who came out for Hillary would step up by speaking out and leaning on their contacts in the national security apparatus to serve their nation by helping Baron and whoever else is willing to uncover the facts and actually drain the swamp.

  4. 4.

    aimai

    Yes, hope is the thing with feathers. A line I’ve absolutely never understood.

    Hey Tom, thanks for the post and the picture, though I’m sorry to see the Jews get the blame here for being traitors. Couldn’t you find anything else to illustrate this with?

    PS I’m pulling an all nighter to write a lit review/social work paper on anxiety in school aged children. So hopefully I won’t be posting on Balloon Juice for much longer because I will be trying to finish my actual work.

  6. 6.

    Yarrow

    I posted this in the previous thread, but if anyone missed it this tweet is the first in a chronological list of Trump/Russia things.

    1. Let me see if I can try & remember all the blatant Russia/Trump things are out there— Grudge (@grudging1) December 10, 2016

    Click on the date to get to the tweet, then click “show more” to see all 38 things. It’s a good reminder of things like the only change the Trump campaign made to the GOP platform is about Ukraine, and how, despite criticizing a wide variety of people and things, Trump has never once spoken out against Russia or Putin.

  9. 9.

    nutella

    Thanks for stating it plainly: Any American who participated in Russia’s successful attempt to throw the election is a traitor.

  11. 11.

    Corner Stone

    @Gin & Tonic: Putin will get to write this century’s history. And everything Obama has done or tried to do will be erased. Obama will go down in history as a feckless and weak president of an empire in rapid decline.

  13. 13.

    divF

    How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not “the thing with feathers”. The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.
    – Woody Allen

    ETA: The Giotto is great – as usual for TL.

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @aimai:

    hope is the thing with feathers. A line I’ve absolutely never understood.

    Seriously not?

    ETA: Sorry, aimai, that came across as snotty and I didn’t mean it that way at all. I love picking apart poetic metaphors, and this poem is one of the first ones I ever parsed.

  15. 15.

    Corner Stone

    @Yarrow: Well, once we start a trade war with China and then attack Iran I guess there won’t be many candidates left to choose from for the winner of this century. I don’t think nuclear mutant cockroaches will be big on writing down the history of the human species in the 21st century.

  19. 19.

    Mike in NC

    Putin will rack up a bunch of frequent flyer miles with Aeroflot once he starts making quarterly visits to Washington and New York to present Trump with his marching orders.

  20. 20.

    Yarrow

    @Corner Stone: I’ve been thinking about this nuclear war thing. So the nuclear missiles are generally aimed at big population centers along with key strategic locations, right? While some of those strategic locations may be in less populated areas, the cities would see the most casualties. So maybe this is the revenge of all those rural voters. Get Putin to bomb the cities and kill all the dangerous people living there. Then they’ll finally have the white Christianist paradise of their dreams.

  21. 21.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    I’ll be curious to see how things go between Russia and China. Russia has always counted on its size and population to make themselves unbeatable, but China has them beat on both counts.

    And since both sides have nukes, this is interesting for a very specific value of interesting. Particularly since I’m on the West Coast.

  22. 22.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @gogol’s wife: From a cat in The Secret Life of Pets:”

    Look Max I’m your friend, OK, and as your friend I’ve got to be honest with you I don’t care about you or your problems!

  25. 25.

    Aleta

    Last July, (and he mentioned this well before then too I think)
    http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/rudy-giuliani-clinton-emails-russia-226367
    (He had/has Russian business connections too I seem to remember.)

    Rudy Giuliani seems to have little doubt that Russia has Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 deleted emails from her private server, a day after Donald Trump suggested that the Kremlin should find the missing emails.

    “My company, Giuliani Partners, and my law firm, Greenberg Traurig, we do cybersecurity for a living. And I’ve been doing it for 13 years, so it’s a subject I know,” the former mayor of New York City said Thursday on “The Mike Gallagher Show.” “The Russians have those emails. They’ve had them for some time.”

    Remarking that if the Russian government “could get into the DNC server and be in there for one year, which they were, the DNC server is a more modern server, much better protected than the old equipment that Hillary had hanging around in the garage at home.”

    A federal investigation into the DNC hack is ongoing, and private-sector cybersecurity experts have said the attack points clearly to Moscow.

    “If they could get into that DNC server, they owned her server in Poughkeepsie,” Giuliani said, although the Clinton server was located in Chappaqua, New York. “And not only did they own it, you know, but so did the Russians, possibly the Israelis, maybe a couple of our other allies. And we do the same thing, so don’t get all upset.”

  27. 27.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yarrow:

    I had forgotten, or at least failed to note the connection, that the last time Trump held a press conference was the one in which he asked Russia to hack HRC’s emails.

    Thanks for linking that tweetstorm. It’s incredibly damning when you see all the individual points listed bing bing bing one after another.

  29. 29.

    dm

    I remember Watergate. There were rumblings before the election, then things really got going in the following year. Of course we had a Democratic Congress then.

    Maybe the faithless electors will let its skip the impeachment.

  33. 33.

    Yarrow

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yeah, that’s why I linked it. It’s the aggregation and chronology that really makes it hit home. And yes, the July 27 press conference where he urged Russia to hack Hillary’s emails is his last press conference to date. That’s not normal.

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Turns out they only hated the commies because they were (nominally) in favor of racial equality, which is why it wasn’t uncommon for African-Americans to be members of the American Communist Party in the 1920s and 1930s. (Bayard Rustin was a famous one, which was one of several reasons why he stayed in the background during the Civil Rights Movement.)

    Once the Russians dropped that nonsense and went white supremacist, there were no more barriers between them and the Republicans.

  35. 35.

    Yarrow

    @Baud: Sorry if I was unclear. By “they” I mean rural voters who seem to want a white Christianist paradise. By whatever means.

  36. 36.

    Corner Stone

    @Yarrow: Nuclear winter doesn’t *exactly* work that way. But I am sure they will be happy to make do as cannibals while wearing the religious robes and carrying the cross as a staff to ward off the 6 legged wolves.

  40. 40.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Aleta:

    “My company, Giuliani Partners, and my law firm, Greenberg Traurig, we do cybersecurity for a living. And I’ve been doing it for 13 years, so it’s a subject I know,”

    I’ve done IT support for lawyers that are Rudy’s age and at his level in his organization, without an exception they need to be shown and reminded on a regular basis how to turn a computer on, but all will tell you how much they know about “The Cyber”.

  41. 41.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yarrow:

    He’s scheduled to hold what’s being called a “press conference” next week (about divesting his holdings). But dollars to doughnuts he won’t take any questions, or if he does, the “reporters” and their questions will be carefully vetted in advance.

  42. 42.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Here’s what should happen to the shitstain Flynn: Live, on national TV, he’s got the Chuck Conner role in a reenactment of the opening credits of Branded

  45. 45.

    Davis X. Machina

    Back during the Cold War I used to hear people say “See, they sold out for money, not ideology. Communism has no appeal — just cash. Capitalism for the win!” And I used to ask them “Are you sure they weren’t just motivated by a different ideology?”

  46. 46.

    Yarrow

    @Mary G: There are Republicans speaking out. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have. Evan McMullin has been relentless. I linked to one of Joe Walsh’s tweets in the previous thread where he calls out Republicans for their silence saying it’s not a partisan issue it’s an American issue. Pundits that have been Never Trump like David Frum and that ilk are standing firm on this as well.

    I just saw this tweet. :

    The intel report on Russia's role in the 2016 election must be available for all electors before the electoral college meets Dec. 19.— John Dean (@JohnWDean) December 10, 2016

    Yes, that John Dean – from Nixon’s White House and Watergate.

  52. 52.

    Aunt Kathy

    Paul Manafort has a condo on the 43rd floor of Trump Tower. He’s been there the whole time, behind the scenes.

  55. 55.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: They did it. With the passing game Army showed today, I hope no one involved ends up branched aviation or artillery.

  56. 56.

    humboldtblue

    Sorry for the off-topic …

    BUT ARMY BEAT NAVY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2001. ARMY BEAT NAVY! ARMY BEAT NAVY! ARMY BEAT NAVY! 21-17

  63. 63.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: Did your dad have a degree when he got commissioned? I found that had more in common with West Point grads and the Princeton ROTC types I met than the Southwest Oklahoma State ROTC folks. This is despite the fact that I was OCS.

  64. 64.

    raven

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yea, he came home from WW2 straight to Illinois (just like I did). He graduated and took a commission. When he was the football and basketball coach at North Chicago (after Wawatosa) he ran the special services at Great Lakes during the summer.

    The on “Regular Navy” officers are academy grads and he found them to be pretty dumb. Of course he had 4 years of combat at sea so he didn’t suffer fools very easily.

  67. 67.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven: I’ve seen mustang used for any OSC grad. So it would include me. But as a grad from a LAC, I got accepted as an equivalent if not equal by the ring knockers. OTOH, my two best friends in my battalion were a Princeton ROTC guy who has since become a bankster and an E-5 to OCS guy (he did the army’s degree completion course after he made CPT) who ended up an LTC in DC overseeing Guard training.

    ETA: My dad has his dad’s rack in a case at home. To the extent that I have one, it is in a dresser drawer in a plastic bag.

  69. 69.

    Elie

    I keep thinking this is hubris for Trump and ultimately for Putin. I suspect that there is a lot of information that will never be public but will be the source of the retaliation — which definitely will occur and I would predict pretty severe. The retaliation may actually make it unnecessary to identify Trump in any accusation… he and his business interests might just be sucked into a vortex of collapsed/attacked interests. I read somewhere that Trump business IT is pretty antiquated with few modern updates and upgrades. I am obviously not an expert in this area, but if that is indeed the case, he could receive a blow back of deep consequence along with Putin. Putin must be expecting some sort of retaliation… it would be stupid not to. Are we in a potential “war” (cyber) with him? The Chinese would be thrilled as it would get us entangled into a possibly damaging confrontation while they could sit out, file their nails and look clean as whistles at the end.
    These are some really effed up times. Trump and his affiliates as well as the Republican Party will ultimately pay “the wages of sin” for their treason. It will unfortunately cost our nation as well. I hope that we make it.

  70. 70.

    John Weiss

    @Mnemosyne: “And since both sides have nukes, this is interesting for a very specific value of interesting. Particularly since I’m on the West Coast.”

    Oh, yes. Bad enough living in earthquake country. Now add in the fallout and the Westerlies.

    But, I counter such worries with Alfred E. Neuman and my experience with cats, so I’m still pretty happy.

  71. 71.

    raven

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    A mustang is slang term in the United States Armed Forces, referring to a commissioned officer who began his or her career as an enlisted service member.[1] Mustangs are older and more experienced than their peers-in-grade who entered the military via commissioning from one of the service academies (such as the United States Merchant Marine Academy, United States Military Academy, United States Air Force Academy, United States Naval Academy, or United States Coast Guard Academy), Officer Candidate School, or the Reserve Officer Training Corps. During the Vietnam War, however, when some Army warrant officer pilots were offered a direct commission to 2nd or 1st Lieutenant, they were usually younger than 25 at the time of commission. Department of Defense military pay tables authorize approximately ten percent pay premiums for officers in grades O-1, O-2 and O-3 who have credit for over four years of enlisted or warrant officer service prior to commissioning (Grades O-1E, O-2E, O-3E).

  72. 72.

    raven

    I’ve got a bunch of my dad’s stuff. He had 5 uniforms so all the kids got one and I have his enlisted blues. My step-mom has his medals.

  74. 74.

    fourmorewars

    The thing about Cheney and hope with feathers needs to be tweaked a little, dontcha think? To something about him shooting hope, but only after it’s been raised tame and confined within a fenced compound?

  75. 75.

    Procopius

    You know, I really have been appalled by this What Trump actually said was that he had heard that the Russians had hacked Hillary’s emails, and he hoped they would release the 3,000 she was supposed to have deleted. Immediately the press started saying he invited them to hack Hillary’s emails. It didn’t happen immediately, the first quote got out for a few hours before the entire MSM started changing the story. I remember it, nobody else seems to. Weird.

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