I always thought it seemed likely that a document prepared by a respected MI-6 operative would be pretty accurate anyway, but when I heard Bob Woodward describe the Steele dossier as”garbage”, I figured every fucking word of it was probably true.
Nine months after its first appearance, the set of intelligence reports known as the Steele dossier, one of the most explosive documents in modern political history, is still hanging over Washington, casting a shadow over the Trump administration that has only grown darker as time has gone by.
[….]But as every passing month brings more leaks, revelations in the press, and more progress in the investigations, the Steele dossier has generally gained in credibility, rather than lost it.
Nobody ever went bankrupt overestimating the stupidity of Beltway establishment media.
James Powell
And let’s not forget the corruption & sycophancy
Doug!
@James Powell:
I meant to say overestimating, I get confused sometimes.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Does this mean the pee tape exists?
Crashman
DougJ, you crazy genius. What a title.
Doug!
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I would guess it probably does.
HeleninEire
I miss the back and forth button on mobile.
Corner Stone
Can we get a Bob Woodward, Ron Fournier, and Chris Cilliza three way death match?
bystander
The fact that Burr wants to attack the funding source rather than disprove the veracity of the factual statements tells you all you need to know about the accuracy. If they could directly attack any of the points on a factual basis they would. Instead they have to look for some kind of a blow job coverup.
PAM Dirac
No, but it gets you removed from Sally Quinn’s guest list and isn’t that what really matters? (where is the button for sarcasm?)
Doug!
@Corner Stone:
Only if it means that all three would die.
Major Major Major Major
Slate had a long, good, boring piece about this a month ago, saying that it’s largely been substantiated and talking more generally about how one goes about substantiating such a document. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/09/a_lot_of_the_steele_dossier_has_since_been_corroborated.html
Corner Stone
Just show us the bank transactions and financial obligations. I do not care who peed on who.
arrieve
Sometimes I think they used to be better — they had to be better, once, didn’t they? Before the great Clenis hunt, before the disgraceful “Mission Accomplished”, they must have been better, smarter, more skeptical. Then I remember one of the debates in the 1984 election, between Reagan and Mondale, where Reagan skirted some questions and lied about others, and the panel afterwards just talked about how confident he seemed compared to Mondale. Not a word about the substance of the debate or any of the issues. I turned off the tv (after some healthy screaming) and didn’t watch tv news for most of the next 20 years or so. I still avoid it whenever possible. The average amoeba has a better attention span than the Villagers, and is probably smarter as well.
MomSense
@bystander:
Now I am of the opinion that Burr is compromised in some way. The longer these investigations go on the more desperate the Republicans will be. I still think the big GOP super pacs were full of Russian contributions and they spread that money around.
BBA
Yeah, but the fonts are wrong. Check the kerning. Therefore no matter how much it’s corroborated, it’s fake and a distraction from Benghazi.
(More seriously: I pay little heed to this stuff, because Trump will pardon everyone he can, and Congress will never impeach anyone. File it in the archives so someday the true story may be told.)
germy
@bystander:
They’re attacking Jeb!??
HeleninEire
@Corner Stone: Are you talking about the filipino death march?? My father’s CO in boot camp survived that. He was not fucking around.
Mnemosyne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I think that’s the subliminal hint he’s trying to give us with that title.
Corner Stone
@germy: No, no, no, silly. Soros. Soros paid for it.
Bobby Thomson
Woodward has been a partisan Republican hack for more than a decade. I would put him with Kurtz and Halperman.
Roger Moore
@bystander:
How do you prove the non-existence of the pee tape? I think it probably exists, mind you, but it’s the kind of rumor that’s essentially impossible to dispel, no matter what the facts are. That’s why the media really ought to make sure they’ve dotted all their “i”s and crossed all their “t”s before talking about it. I just wish they had been as careful about researching scurrilous Republican nonsense about Hillary.
Bobby Thomson
@Corner Stone: your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Corner Stone
@HeleninEire: No, not last time I checked.
zhena gogolia
@Corner Stone:
You don’t?
VOR
@Corner Stone: One of the more recent conspiracy theories was that Soros was funding Neo-Nazi groups for things like Charlottesburg. Seriously, a Jewish, Holocaust survivor funding Nazis. Suuuuure.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Corner Stone: I care to see the Evangelicals’ and other GOP assholes’ reactions to thr peeped tapes. Will they hector and tut tut at Dolt45 like they did Bill Clinton about Monica? Enquirer Minds want to know!
Corner Stone
@zhena gogolia: Trump is pissing on the entire country and everything we ever believed should be important, every day. If he enjoys telling paid escorts where to urinate in a hotel room, that’s like a step up. I would rather bury him on RICO or other associated financial charges.
Corner Stone
@Mai.naem.mobile: We already know what they will do.
Cheryl Rofer
@bystander: I’m not sure they’re attacking the funding source. Burr seems to me to be professional in his approach. Is he a Republican? Yes. But he also seems to realize that he has responsibilities beyond those to the Mercers. I may be proven wrong, but I’ll stick with this for a while.
I think that knowing the funding source could give a lot of information. Was the funder the same through the Jeb! and DNC stages? What did the funder know? Why was it Steele who was funded? Who first figured out that the Russians were up to something? How did they know?
I think it’s more that than an attack.
dmsilev
@VOR: That’s easy. If the Holocaust never happened, then obviously Soros couldn’t have survived it. In fact, he and his …type probably faked that, just as they’re faking this.
Ok, now I need to bleach my brain out after writing that.
Mai.naem.mobile
@germy: nah, didn’t Hillary pay for more stuff after the initial tape, after the primaries or did she pay for the same material?
germy
@Mai.naem.mobile: Good question.
Baud
Ask not for whom the pee flows. It flows for thee.
gvg
I think it means he knows republican sources are always lying, therefore to him it must be a lie if it comes from democrats. He is projecting. He doesn’t have much experience outside his bubble.Not only does he not realize democrats often tell the truth, he dosen’t know about non partisan sources or what convinces non politicised people.
Steele is British not an American democrat.
He also doesn’t know or maybe acknowledge it started with Jeb.
He is revealing himself not Steele.
germy
@Baud: Of Pee I Sing
rikyrah
I always believed that it was true.
rikyrah
When I found out that Steele worked on his own dime for awhile, that convinced me of its veracity.
germy
Why The Steele Dossier On Russia-Trump Collusion Keeps Growing In Significance
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Oh, say, can you pee?
SRW1
Young Woodward was desperate to make it. Old Woodward is desperate to keep it.
germy
@SRW1: Interesting how he uses the same word: “garbage” as man(overboard)afort.
pea
always preferred bernstein over woodward.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
@Matt McIrvin:
Pee little maids from school.
Another Scott
ObOpenThread. WaPo:
More of this, please.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
It’s not about exactly what he did with whom. It’s about the Russian government having blackmail material on him.
Achrachno
@Corner Stone: That too, but given the squirrelly way public opinion moves, the supposed tapes might have a big effect. Even if they just chip away a little — that’d help. I’ll take anything we can get that degrades Trump and the Rs — and this is weird (and unlikely) but would be degrading as all heck.
germy
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
So it seems Pence today planned on walking out of that Colt’s game.
Exhibit A:
Reporters were told to not bother exiting their vehicles as there would likely be an early exit from the stadium, presumably Pence.
Exhibit B:
He had press release all drafted up before hand.
Exhibit C:
Colt players had been kneeling for over a year. He knew this would happen before he walked in.
Pence is doing this to serve Trump and keep the issue from dying and stoke racial resentments.
Corner Stone
@pea: Bernstein is a rabid anti-HRC asshole, he’s just not a 100% GOP suckup like Woodward is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Beat me to it.
But this
made me laugh out loud. I wonder if trump had them wear blonde wigs and call him daddy…
Mike in NC
We moved to North Carolina almost ten years ago. Burr has been around longer than that. Your basic generic Republican pol who delivers stump speeches calling for more tax cuts. Don’t expect an empty suit like that to go after the Trump Crime Cartel.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore: He raped his first wife, he attended under age sex parties, he went into dressing rooms for beauty pageant minors, he admitted committing sexual assault and had over a dozen charges against him from different women.
Evangelicals would transform the act into a purification ritual.
ETA – RICO/financials *should not* be subject to public opinion.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good point, but I think evidence of criminal money laundering– NAL, and wondering how hard that would be to prove to a jury of slack jaws?– would count the same way.
Lyrebird
@Corner Stone:
Seconded! Thirded! Whatever! Just get them OUT so they stop peeing on PR, our servicemen&women in Korea, anyone who uses birth control or would like to keep sleeping with someone who does…
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: you mean the craven politician acted politically?
Roger Moore
@Corner Stone:
The electorate is not divided into ultra-committed Evangelical Trump supporters and everyone else. There were plenty of Republicans who held their noses while voting for Trump because they hated Clinton even worse. Anything that pushes those voters and makes them reconsider their choice is a good thing. It’s far easier to think about the pee tape in the abstract and believing it was probably a fraud anyway than it is to be confronted with the actual article.
There’s also the matter of it always having been hard to believe. It’s just so outlandish that a lot of people have dismissed it out of hand and used it to call the whole dossier into question. If it can be confirmed, ideally in all its golden detail, it lends a ton of credibility to everything else in the dossier.
Mnemosyne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Exhibit D:
Some eagle-eyed tweeters noticed that the photo that Pence put up that was allegedly of him and Mother preparing to enjoy today’s game was actually from 2014.
Cheryl Rofer
I know that the pee tape is sensational, but it’s not the biggest part of the Steele dossier. The biggest part is about Trump campaign workers working with Kremlin folks to get the material out on Clinton. With possibly a dash of money laundering thrown in. That’s what will get people put in jail and perhaps Trump removed from office. That’s also the part that is being verified, bit by bit.
And yeah, the pee tape probably doesn’t matter much, unless Trump is sensitive enough about it that it can be used as kompromat. But likely the money stuff is more effective kompromat.
rikyrah
I think that they – the MSM wanted to poo-poo it because, if true, they missed the biggest story in a generation. And, who wants to admit that?
Mnemosyne
@Cheryl Rofer:
I think most of us who hope that the pee tape is real and will be released just want it for straight-up revenge. We want Mike Pence to have to make a statement defending it on every network.
The money laundering and campaign assistance is the really dangerous and damaging stuff, though.
divF
@Cheryl Rofer: O/T, but have you / are you going to comment on last week’s story on NASA running out of Pu-238, used to power unmanned space missions ? I’d be interested in knowing the details of what makes this a hard problem.
ETA: back on topic: The King in Yellow has not been used in this thread (I know it from the Raymond Chandler short story, not the earlier book.).
germy
@Mnemosyne: Publicity stunt. Another ridiculous plane ride.
Cheryl Rofer
@divF: Do you have a link? My understanding of the Pu-238 issue is that they were running out of it but have started up a new line at Oak Ridge that is beginning to produce significant amounts. So I’ve assumed the problem is more or less solved, but something could have happened since the last time I read about it.
JPL
@Cheryl Rofer: Honestly, it doesn’t matter to the evangelicals.
Cheryl Rofer
@Mnemosyne: I would love it if the pee tape were real and aired on all the networks.
Achrachno
@Cheryl Rofer: Yes, but can we take whatever we can get? Every little erosion of support is a plus. Besides, damage to public image does not rely on the support of R Senators, judges, etc. It’s an easy hit (if true) even if smaller than some others. And the more T. is damaged by other stuff, even what we consider “trivial”, the more likely the weaker Rs are to turn on him on the big stuff.
divF
@Cheryl Rofer: Here it is.
ETA: Link fixed.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
“We want Mike Pence to have to make a statement defending it on every network.” QFT. I want to see that smarmy bastard squirm.
divF
@Cheryl Rofer: Fixed, I think. Try again.
Achrachno
@Cheryl Rofer: Exactly! If we can’t hit him with a torpedo below the water line right now, can we at least dent him a bit more? He’s down to 32% — let’s push it lower.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
An illustrative GIF. If lamh36 doesn’t have this one in her collection, she should add it. ?
Mnemosyne
@Cheryl Rofer:
Yeah, I just wanted to be clear that I, at least, don’t think it will make any actual difference. I just want to watch the Republicans publicly defend it.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Achrachno:
Damn, is his approval rating down that low? We’re repidly approaching Nixion levels of approval when Watergate broke.
ETA: no wonder FEMA scrubbed bad Puero Rico data from its public website.
Cheryl Rofer
@divF: Thanks! As I read the article (and much of the science stuff is really awful), it sounds like my understanding is not too far off. They are not specific about what the problems are, so I can’t say much about that, but it sounds to me like there are some glitches they are running into in production that are not abnormal for startup processes, and the article even says that they’re not necessarily off schedule, just that they will be if the worst happens. Duh.
BTW, the slug in that famous pic at the top (actually Pu-238, but often erroneously used to illustrate any kind of plutonium), is about an inch across. The Bradbury Museum in Los Alamos has a mockup at scale.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
A huge chunk of what I want is for some tangible, unavoidable evidence that the Steele dossier was true. If the pee tape shows up- and IIRC, what they’re talking about right now is just some circumstantial evidence surrounding it- it will be much harder to dismiss the whole thing as a pack of lies made up by Trump’s enemies.
divF
@Cheryl Rofer: Thanks. It’s hard to see how serious the problem is from the article, and I did not click through to the testimony to Congress this week (which I may do now).
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/354325-poll-trump-approval-hits-32-percent
Achrachno
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Yeah! As of two days ago, according to article in The Hill. “Trump approval hits record-low 32 percent in AP poll” Might be a little lower by now. 27% is in sight.
Achrachno
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: You’re too quick for me.
chrome agnomen
something something yellow snow
don’t go where the russkies go
bystander
@Cheryl Rofer: Your reasoning would also explain why Warner is not begging to differ with Burr. I don’t trust Burr for any number of reasons and reserve the right to view him with suspicion in any event.
Cheryl Rofer
@bystander: Fair enough. He’s a Republican.
NeenerNeener
@chrome agnomen: I thought it was:
Watch out where the huskies go
And don’t you eat that yellow snow
but it’s been 40 years since I heard that song.
Citizen Alan
@Mnemosyne:
Agreed. I want the P tape to be real and to be released so that I can flat out accused every single Trump supporter I know to their faces of only supporting Trump because they were also into Watersports. I’m hoping that will cause some of them to stroke out.
Robert Sneddon
@Cheryl Rofer: IIRC the US government bought some Pu-238 from the Russians after the USSR’s Great Going Out Of Business Sale back in the 1990s. The Russians haven’t flown any deep space missions that require an RTG. They used some Pu-238 to power lighthouses and such around their northern coasts but they also used Sr-90 for the same purpose as it was easier to source from their commercial fuel reprocessing lines although it needs heavier shielding than Pu-238.
There are rumours that some Pu-238 has been used by US intelligence services to power deep-sea monitoring stations to track submarine movements as well as “stealth” intelligence-gathering satellites that don’t have to deploy large and highly visible solar panels for power.
zhena gogolia
@NeenerNeener:
You are correct.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
You are clearly a better person than I am. I want the pee tape solely for the humiliation value as I rub it in the faces of all of the “upstanding Christians” who supported Trump.
mike in dc
@Cheryl Rofer:
This. The reason why continued investigation of the dossier matters is because they find the allegations of coordination/collusion/conspiracy credible enough to keep looking into it. Substantiate those allegations, and you bring down the whole shebang.
Cheryl Rofer
@Robert Sneddon: Yes, we bought some Pu-238 from the Russians. That supply has now run out, however. And it would not surprise me if it were used in other places where the sun doesn’t shine.
Mnemosyne
@Cheryl Rofer:
Phrasing! ;-)
Matt McIrvin
@Cheryl Rofer: I know there’s been a shortage for a while; it’s why Juno was designed to be solar-powered, which is not easy all the way out at Jupiter.
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: As I said in another thread, that poll seems like an extreme outlier. It was the last time they released one, too, in June.
joel hanes
@Achrachno:
27% is in sight.
Darth Cheney ended at 19%
I think He, Trump is just the guy to break that record.
mike in dc
@joel hanes:
50% of Rs and R-leaning independents gets you to 20%. I doubt he’ll ever drop below 40% R support. But I think low 20s is very doable.
Villago Delenda Est
The vermin of the Village not only are afflicted with Broderism, they’ve got the Bill Kristol disease…being perpetually wrong in their assessments of things…as well.
Gvg
I don’t care if random consenting adults have that kink. The significance to me of that story was the Obama’s slept there first part of the story. It implied a whole lot of hatred towards a leader I trust, so it meant Trump is really my enemy.
I wonder if that means some GOP tribalists actually admire that and it may not hurt him that much if true?
The Simp in the Suit
It’s not that Woody is stupid or wrong, it’s that he’s been on the CIA’s payroll for a long, long time.
Mnemosyne
@Gvg:
I’m guessing that most of the tribalists secretly wish they’d been able to do it themselves. That’s why I want to call them out and mock them for it.
Mike G
@Mai.naem.mobile:
We already saw how they reacted to “Grab ’em by the pussy” — a big shrug. Why, one could almost conclude that their decades of pearl-clutching over the mega-importance of “personal morality” in politicians was less than sincere.
Trump hates the same people they do, so he’s good. Can’t you just feel Christ’s love flowing through their hearts?
Cckids
Agreed. I’ve always thought the tape/story was that DT hired hookers to piss on the bed President Obama & FLOTUS slept in, not “Golden Showers” games. And honestly, do any of us believe that a deplorably large percentage of Cheatolini’s supporters wouldn’t cheer that on? I can hear them now.
Tehanu
@Mnemosyne:
Hear, hear! Sure, the money laundering probably has more value in a lawsuit, but at this point, I just want to see Dump writhing — and preferably, showing what his head really looks like without that dead muskrat he wears on it.
barb 2
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Could it be that shitgibbon wants to provoke a race war? Is he trying to make one of his rabid fans murder a black athlete? Shitgibbon will try a military take over and enforce his whims on us/US. He will enforce censorship of the media, (late night comics are unfair to him and his ego is screaming).
He certainly seems like he wants some sort of war — if not with N Korea then in America. He’s a racist prick and willing to do anything to “win”.
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
That document had a long fuse.
Mueller’s investigators are on it now, so expecting one or more detonations in the near to mid future.
thalarctosMaritimus
@rikyrah: They poo-poo’ed the pee tape?
Mnemosyne
@thalarctosMaritimus:
So close, but it’s late at night. Fix’d.
James Powell
@Roger Moore:
Those Republicans hated Clinton worse because they were told to hate her and they followed. They will be told to hate any Democrat. The Great Unknown is whether they will ever not hate the Democrat. The fact that they went for Trump isn’t a good sign.