Today I saw two older videos of Donald Trump in a Russian connection.
Might be interesting to know who that fellow is who is facilitating the meeting.
Enjoy the footage of this historic summit: https://t.co/BIWwouvQuN
— Россия во мгле. (@gIf3TNnktaAbC32) February 4, 2019
#Russia, December 1995.#Moscow city officials welcome a delegation of #US developers to talk investments into construction business of the Russian capital#FamiliarFaces
(via @ShadenFM) pic.twitter.com/D6i26qa5lP— Maxim A. Suchkov (@MSuchkov_ALM) February 4, 2019
Might be interesting to know who the other folks are. Also why these videos showed up over the last few days.
Open thread!
Jerzy Russian
Who among us has not been tricked into meeting look-alikes of foreign leaders?
Mr. Kite
That headline… I was >< this close to removing myself from the internets for good thinking this was the mythical pee pee tape.
Dmbeaster
Russian sourced. How Putin reminds Trump that his “report” on Trump’s Russian connections probably can be a whole lot scarier than Mueller’s best effort.
Trump looks out of his element in the second 1995 video.
Major Major Major Major
I’m sure it’s just part of that coincidence they’ve been working on.
sukabi
I’m not an expert, but the 95 clip looks a bit off. The closeup of drumpf doesn’t quite match the wide shots…the hair looks like it’s a bad wig or bad rotoscope…
Sebastian
The reason all these things are coming out is simple: Softening the target with artillery and airstrikes.
Come on, you all feel it, don’t you? It’s coming and it’s going to be devastating.
Jeffro
I am starting to get the sense that someone, or someones, is “prepping the battlefield” with weird news, fake accusations, photos, and so on. “Divide the Dems” and “preemptively ‘fake’ accuse Don the Con” seem to be the main themes. I am in no way discounting the seriousness of any of these instances we’re seeing either way. I’m just saying that we seem to be off and running with stuff like this and minimal ways to verify videos, pictures, etc, and a sensible government looking out for its people would be having nightly seminars on how to double-check the nonsense that someone forwards them on FB, “deep fake” videos, and so on.
Ah, wait, I see my problem…
Sebastian
One thing I am starting to enjoy more and more is the look of sheer panic in SHS and KAC eyes. Anyone else noticing this?
Jeffro
@Sebastian: Annnnnd I see we were kinda on the same page here…ugh. I think you’re right. We’re going to be seeing all kinds of crazy shit. If we had a national government actually trying to do something about it, instead of a president* who benefits from it, things would be quite different.
Sebastian
@Jeffro:
I hear ya bud but i think you are just panicking. Happens to me every few days too. And then I see the IC gutting another Trumpster and I rejoice.
Have faith, they are all going down.
satby
I’m officially sick of all politics in this country. The usual Wilmerite idiots are busy tearing down different Democratic candidates for previous votes that aren’t sufficiently leftist enough, ratfucking is working, and while actual Nazis disappear children, everyone’s civil rights are in jeopardy, and hate crimes rise the Democratic circular firing squads are gearing up. It’s just too much.
It isn’t going to get better.
Cheryl Rofer
Just one pro-forma tweet about an appointment from the Tweeter-in-Chief today. Huh.
sukabi
@Sebastian: can’t watch any of them, I’ll break something, but the screen grabs and photos that are being used sure make it seem like they’re about to unravel.
Sebastian
@sukabi:
I can’t either but I see screenshots and their facial expressions are … harrowed? It fills me with glee after all I’ve personally been through because of these pieces of shit.
Yutsano
@Cheryl Rofer: Isn’t he in Florida? I think he’s still in Florida.
Achracho
These are not the videos I want.
Cheryl Rofer
@Yutsano: I don’t know.
Aleta
Aleta
@Aleta: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-prosecutors-issue-sweeping-subpoena-for-documents-from-trump-inaugural-committee-a-sign-of-a-deepening-criminal-probe/2019/02/04/b6382642-28e5-11e9-8eef-0d74f4bf0295_story.html
debbie
@sukabi:
That’s him and that’s how his hair looked in the 1990s. As I’ve said countless times, we NYCers were subjected to daily onslaughts of The Donald on local tv and newspapers.
Aleta
@Aleta:
From NYT:
Amir Khalid
I saw the post headline, and for just a moment I was idly wondering who had managed to teach Trump to use a video camera. (Sorry.)
The “Gorbachev” video might embarrass Trump, if he but had the capacity to be embarrassed.
Yutsano
Blah. Definitely not the pee tape.
Major Major Major Major
@satby:
Not only that, the “Sanders’s M4A bill or bust!” mentality has made it so that the media is gleefully pressing candidates on whether or not they want to outlaw half the country’s health insurance. Like, I’m not being hyperbolic, that’s the framing of the debate.
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
See what happens when people over use the phrase:
“There are no stupid questions.”
gwangung
@Major Major Major Major: The fact that so many Sanders supporters don’t know the difference between single payer and universal healthcare (and why you can be for one and not the other) kinda degrades discussion as well. And politically speaking, it’s knowing how to get from point A to point B that makes a successful program AND politician.
John Revolta
They’re just now investigating the inaugural committee? I ain’t getin’ any younger over here guys!!!
Jerzy Russian
@Jay:
Sometimes I want to tell the class “there are no stupid questions, only the people who ask them”. So far I have resisted that urge.
Viva BrisVegas
Since it’s an open thread, I’ll regale you with some cheery non-Trump news.
Tasmania is burning.
“The night we met Davies told me that the south-west of Tasmania – the island’s vast, uninhabited and globally unique wildland, the heart of its world heritage area – was dying. The iconic habitats of rainforest, button grass plains, and heathlands had begun to vanish because of climate change.”
“The highland lakes of Tasmania would, for example, in the next 70 to 100 years see between a 10% and 20% drop in rainfall, coupled to a 20% to 30% increase in evaporation. By the end of this century a significant proportion of these lakes and wetlands will cease to exist or be largely dried out much of the year.”
“Then there was the startlingly new phenomenon of widespread dry lightning storms. Almost unknown in Tasmania until this century they had increased exponentially since 2000, leading to a greatly increased rate of fire in a rapidly drying south-west. Compounding all this, winds were also growing in duration, further drying the environment and fuelling the fires’ spread and ferocity.”
“Today Tasmania is burning. Its fires are so large that a firefighting team was reportedly called out in New Zealand to investigate a heavy smoke haze that turned out to have drifted across 2,500km of ocean from the Tasmanian fires. ”
Why should we care about Tasmania, the birth place of Errol Flynn and the notepad?
Probably because it’s only the first such ecosystem to go. Following that will be New Zealand, then the temperate forests of North America and Europe.
Things are bad people, the world we grew up in will be gone before the end of the century and it’s now far too late to prevent it. But at least the rich got their tax cuts.
Why is this cheery? Well if you think Trump is bad …
PJ
The Gorbachev thing isn’t new. Here’s a clip from Robin Leach about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkxxxuWLSac. And here’s an article from 1988 about Trump wanting to meet Gorbachev: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/from-the-archives-when-trump-hoped-to-meet-gorbachev-in-manhattan/2017/07/10/3f570b42-658c-11e7-a1d7-9a32c91c6f40_story.html?utm_term=.5ec2dd931994
Ken
@sukabi:
His hair always looks like that.
(Come on, admit it – you set that up hoping for exactly that response.)
Major Major Major Major
Villago Delenda Est
Do not fuck with the deep state. They have friends in the Baltics who would love some regime change in the US.
Villago Delenda Est
@Major Major Major Major: Never mind the radioactive waste that no one cares to deal with.
Go solar, go wind, go geothermal, go tidal, go hydro.
Villago Delenda Est
@gwangung: This is where Bernie abjectly fails. He has no clue about the path from point A to point B. All hat, no cattle, Bernie is.
oldgold
Sanders has Potomac Presidential Fever. A disease that has afflicted many Senators over the history of this Republic. The only known cure is embalming fluid.
sukabi
@Major Major Major Major: how is nuclear energy green? Still can’t dispose of the waste safely.
Yutsano
@Villago Delenda Est: I’ve said before I was Bernie-curious for about 5 minutes. Then I took a look at his actual “proposals” such as they were.None of them had any practical plan of action with them, just platitudes and vague ideas. Curiosity was sated: go away Wilmer.
Major Major Major Major
@sukabi: I feel like there’ve been some good threads on Cheryl’s posts about this topic? Always somebody who shows up and stans for liquid salt reactors.
gwangung
@Villago Delenda Est: Yup. Major, major failing.
And it’s Obama’s strength. Despite all the carping about Obamacare ( much of which was true), it was built specifically to go from point A and point B—and it was built so well that it has resisted YEARS of Republican hammering at it to break it.
Obama had his shot to get it right, and he did it as well as he could. The next president is going to be the same way; they;re going to have a narrow time frame to get it right, so it HAS to get the point A to point B stuff right.
gwangung
Also…gonna add that you are gonna have to be careful about massive changes in systems—because you most certainly will not get the time to oversee big changes from beginning to end. You and/or your constituency will be voted out of office before you finish.
Emerald
@Viva BrisVegas:
I’ve been stressing a bit about getting into my elderly years. But I’ll miss experiencing the destruction of most of the earth, so maybe I shouldn’t complain.
Yutsano
@gwangung: Happy Lunar New Year by the by.
eemom
@Villago Delenda Est:
Dunno, that somehow strikes me as an understatement. How about all coyote, no cattle?
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
How to be rightously right, and horribly wrong, at the same time.
Jay
@eemom:
All coyote, no roadrunner.
NotMax
@debbie
We can ‘thank’ Vanity Fair for bestowing that upon him. And consequently us.
tobie
@gwangung: Yup, M4All deadenders don’t know the difference between single payer and universal healthcare and aren’t interested in learning how various systems work. I also don’t get the focus right now on individual tax rates instead of the corporate tax code. A wealth tax and higher marginal tax rates will generate some revenue for the Treasury but not much. Figure out how to force companies to invest their profits in their workforce instead of passing on earnings to shareholders and you’ll do more good for working Americans than any President in the past 40 years.
gwangung
@Yutsano: Heh. Thank you. Unfortunately iced in by melted snow, so I can’t celebrate properly…..
NotMax
@Jay
No more phone calls please, we have a winner.
NotMax
@tobie
A wealth tax is a first step, not the end point, and by injecting at least 1% of GDP all on its own serves to stanch the bleeding.
Jay
@tobie:
As an example, the Guardian has a story up on how the ogliarches had been decorating their massive yachts with millions in arts and antiques,
Which were getting damaged by their brats holding food fights.
The solution, teaching the Yacht staff how to properly care for and curate art and antiquities.
Eating the Rich has become a popular sentiment.
Corporations are not yet on the menu.
Inequality in the west can’t be fixed just with wages and benifits.
Yutsano
@gwangung: It’s still coming down over here. I’m weighing a delayed start to the office tomorrow but I’ll see what things look like. It will be mostly sunny but in the 20s so…could be entertaining.
And apparently we get to do it all over again on Friday!
Martin
@sukabi: It’s real. That video has been out there for a few years now.
sukabi
@Martin: the 1995 one?
Villago Delenda Est
@Jay: Heads need to roll. Many have forgotten 1789.
Jay
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yup.
Martin
@sukabi: The one with him meeting fake Gorbechev.
jl
@Major Major Major Major: I agree with Cole (can’t believe I typed that again) on this. Booker is tied in too much with some very big money interests, and he is devoted to them. Can’t trust him. Booker is wonderful on some progressive issues, but on this he is a mess. He won’t last long in the primaries. Not sure how Booker reconciles his stand on Medicare for All with his past allegiance to big pharma. I could be wrong about him, but I have grave doubts.
And I think, like Biden, he is way out of date on what kind of politics will work today. I saw some of his commercials, and they are pretty old and stale. Inspirational and zippy, and way over produced and smooth, but I don’t think that is what most people want now. Biden and Booker look like they are getting ready to O’Malley themselves out of the race fast.
I think Gillibrand may be same as Booker, but just far more subtle and prepares her moves far more carefully, but we’ll see.
So far, I like Warren, and Harris. And let’s see what Brown does.
Edit: but then, as I typed a few threads ago, we really don’t know who is serious about getting pres nomination, versus who is auditioning for something else. So, can’t take most of the candidacies too seriously at this stage.
Villago Delenda Est
@debbie: Anyone who subscribed to the late, lamented Spy in the 90’s was very familiar with the “eccentricities” of Donald Trump. As in “what an asshole!”
NotMax
@Villago Delenda Est
Bligh and Christian aboard the Bounty?
;)
Citizen Alan
@Yutsano:
I was literally sitting in my car in the parking lot of my voting location trying to decide between Hillary and Bernie. I went with Hillary, of course, but it wasn’t until a few weeks later that the fever finally broke and I wondered why on earth I ever considered Bernie to even be a viable choice.
sukabi
@Martin: it was the other one that looked hinky to me.
Jay
@Citizen Alan:
You were angry, fed up and wanted a Revolution, not the status quo.
Wilmer’s not a revolutionary,
You did manage to elect a nice crop last year.
Sister Golden Bear
@Cheryl Rofer: White House staff finally persuaded the DC Zoo to loan them a tranq gun?
Yutsano
@Citizen Alan: It annoyed me how limited I felt on my “choice” because of how fucked up the Washington primary system is. The binding vote was the caucus, which went to Bernie. Well forgive me for not standing in a stranger’s house while we shouted over each other for position. And then I got my primary ballot and felt my Presidential vote was meaningless in the non-binding primary. This shit needs to get fixed come 2020.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: I agree with jl (can’t believe I typed that again) on this.
Sister Golden Bear
@John Revolta: They’ve had their handful just investigating the first 24 hours of the Trump campaign…. //
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s not a hat, that’s a propeller beanie.
NotMax
@Cheryl Rofer
Saving the word salad for the SOTU.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
Same here, about 5 minutes of little effort and BS turned out to be just BS. It’s good sounding BS but it shows/showed that his entire platform was written by the staff of Mad Men. Doesn’t matter what you are selling, as long as the rubes are buying.
Repatriated
@Villago Delenda Est: Drop the waste into an undersea subduction fault. Keep the individual parcel sizes small and dispersed to prevent criticality events, and let plate tectonics do the rest.
Probably easier said than done though.
sukabi
@Sister Golden Bear: campaign thru 1st week investigated, dozens pled out, cooperating and or indicted….just think another 2 years worth of crimes to go and we’ll be all caught up…
Adding, Sister Golden Bear, you link is borked.
tobie
@Jay: I’m not defending the decadence and greed and irresponsibility of the filthy rich (called such for a reason). But I also know that they will find umpteen ways to avoid paying taxes on their wealth from stashing their funds abroad as immovable assets to bribing assessors. Getting rid of qualified dividends, corporate loopholes, tax credit for margin accounts, carried interest provisions, etc. and you’re talking about substantial sums for social policy. Some combination of the above is needed.
sukabi
@sukabi: here’s the link from Sister Golden Bear above
Jay
@tobie:
Yup, along with micro taxes on stock trades.
But there is right now, popualist support for eating the rich.
Popualist support is a key component to getting change passed.
joel hanes
@Villago Delenda Est:
Go solar, go wind, go geothermal, go tidal, go hydro.
Go confidential, inexpensive, available, effective birth control.
joel hanes
@Repatriated:
Drop the waste into an undersea subduction fault.
It’s been studied, believe me.
The idea I saw had dart-shaped canisters designed to penetrate deep into the ooze.
But faults are not well-behaved things, and the slabs scrape and stick and pinch, and IIRC they concluded that the likely result would be rupture of the canisters and contamination of stretches of the abyssal seafloor, and that such contamination would then get carried by deep currents to places we don’t want it.
joel hanes
@joel hanes:
I can’t believe I had the temerity to comment on matters nuke in a Cheryl thread.
rikyrah
Booker likes nuclear power???
debbie
@Villago Delenda Est:
That was such a great magaine! I think it’s the first one I consistently read page by page, all the way through.
@NotMax:
My memory tells me it was Ivana’s creation. Another fine piece of work.
The Moar You Know
Normalizing the abnormal.
“See, Trump with Russians! Trump has ALWAYS done business with Russians!”
It will work, too.
tobie
@Jay:
This thread is probably long since dead but I’ll say it anyway that a movement whose primary motivation is “eating the rich,” is antithetical to liberal democracy. It’s why I have no truck with populism either on the left or the right and why I’m appalled by Elizabeth Warren’s campaign thus far. She’s disqualified herself in my view. A real leader would try to move the nation from pitchfork populism, not fan the flames of it.