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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Russiagate Open Thread: Maria Butina Released from Federal Prison

Russiagate Open Thread: Maria Butina Released from Federal Prison

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Per NPR:

… The Russian national, who pleaded guilty late last year to conspiring to act as a clandestine foreign agent, was released Friday into the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Now she’s expected to be deported quickly back to Russia.

Her release closes a fraught chapter for Butina, who for months occupied a spotlight in the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Prosecutors accused Butina of scheming to forge a connection between Moscow and the Trump administration, as well as several heavy hitters in the conservative political community — including officials at the National Rifle Association and the National Prayer Breakfast…

She still has at least one NRAphilic defender — “U.S. Rep for KY’s 4th District, Chairman 2nd Amdt Caucus, Political Science Denier”:

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  1. 1.

    The Moar You Know

    If she’d been an American in Russia, accused of the same thing, she sure as shit wouldn’t be getting released and deported.

  2. 2.

    Patricia Kayden

    Does Massie know how many Black people are in U.S. prisons for non-violent, drug-related offenses? Many of them are in prison for life.

    This woman needed to be in prison for breaking our laws and her sentence was embarrassingly short. I wonder how she’ll fare under Putin though. He may not be pleased that she let herself get caught.

  7. 7.

    piratedan

    I’m guessing Massie is simply upset that he hasn’t had the opportunity to sleep with her yet………… those word of mouth recommendations must be something else…

  8. 8.

    Starfish

    I don’t pay deep attention to rightwingers, but a number of rightwingers that feel she was innocent and was unfairly charged, but I do not get why they believe this about her.

  9. 9.

    Aleta

    Post: U.S. judge orders Mueller grand jury materials released to House Judiciary Committee in impeachment inquiry

    In a 75-page opinion, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell of Washington cited a 1974 federal appeals court decision in Haldeman v. Sirica that upheld that congressional impeachment proceedings are excepted from normal grand jury secrecy rules.

    “In carrying out the weighty constitutional duty of determining whether impeachment of the President is warranted, Congress need not redo the nearly two years of effort spent on the Special Counsel’s investigation, nor risk being misled by witnesses, who may have provided information to the grand jury and the Special Counsel that varies from what they tell” the House, Howell wrote.
    She found that a House impeachment investigation and Senate trial qualifies under an grand jury material exemption that permits prosecutors to share information “preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding.”

    At a hearing earlier this month, Howell called “extreme” the arguments presented by Trump administration lawyers who opposed the House request for Mueller grand-jury materials, which predated Congress’s current impeachment inquiry surrounding the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine.

  10. 10.

    The Dangerman

    Hope she has her life insurance premiums paid up and stays away from open windows on the upper floors.

  11. 11.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @The Moar You Know:
    Definitely. She’d have been “deported” to oblivion by Putin’s goons. Or perhaps held as a permanent “guest” of the Kremlin. Massie can fuck right off about “Russophobia”.

    We don’t hate the Russian people themselves. We hate their government. Big difference

  12. 12.

    Betty Cracker

    Kay called this WEEKS ago:

    President Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale has privately warned the president that his plans to reduce youth vaping by banning flavored e-cigarettes could backfire in the 2020 election — placing Trump’s reelection campaign into the middle of a governmental debate over a major public health issue.

    The political lobbying effort comes as the Trump administration is considering whether to continue allowing menthol and mint flavored e-cigarette products, which would mark a major retreat from a proposed ban announced in September on “all non-tobacco” flavors, according to three people familiar with the deliberations. Government data shows that nearly two-thirds of high schoolers who use e-cigarettes use mint or menthol flavors.

    Parscale has commissioned internal campaign polling to argue that Trump supporters who use e-cigarettes could abandon the president if he follows through on a ban, according to a person familiar with the effort, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

    It totally would backfire on the mofos. Vaping is HUGE in rural America. My tiny little town has at least three vape shops.

  14. 14.

    rikyrah

    In a matter of weeks Marina Butina will be hailed as a Hero of Russia & revealed as an FSB intelligence officer even if she was just a influence subcontractor. We will be humiliated but Russia will laugh at how Republicans will deny they’ve been played. https://t.co/I8SQzOZh9M

    — Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) October 25, 2019

  18. 18.

    Ruckus

    @Patricia Kayden:
    I’m trying to find the logic somewhere in the whole illegal drug mess. We’ve spent probably hundreds of billions trying to stop this and nothing seems to have been effective. Someone said a while ago that we spend the same for the drugs as we spend as a government trying to stop them and for all that we intercept and destroy there is far more than that being sold. We incarcerate a lot of people, to no actual success at stoping the use of drugs. Maybe if we actually improved life for most people they’d stop doing drugs to get through their shitty lives because there isn’t enough work nor reasonable pay.

  19. 19.

    The Dangerman

    @Mary G:

    Why? She delivered the NRA and a majority of the Republican Party.

    I think you answered your own question.

    I don’t think she gets the heroes welcome in Russia. She goes away quietly, one way or another.

  20. 20.

    Mary G

    @Aleta: I like this judge:

    Howell's opinion uses the word "impeach" 278 times and has broad implications. Here is the key line Democrats were hoping for: "Even in cases of presidential impeachment, a House resolution has never, in fact, been required to begin an impeachment inquiry."— Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) October 25, 2019

    It wasn’t that smart for Twitler to blanketly refuse documents and witnesses to Congress. Stalling would have bought more time.

  23. 23.

    Mary G

    @Mary G:

    Howell directly points to the White House's letter to Congress stating it won't comply with the inquiry as a reason to rule for the Judiciary Committee"The White House’s stated policy of non-cooperation with the impeachment inquiry weighs heavily in favor of disclosure."— Sarah D. Wire (@sarahdwire) October 25, 2019

    Cipollone letting Twitler write the “fuck you” letter blew back on Twitler.

  24. 24.

    Miss Bianca

    @Betty Cracker: Oh please, oh, please, oh, please….let this be an own goal!! Let Trump be hoist on the petard of vaping bans!

    @Ruckus: But that would be an ACTUAL solution to a problem. I think it should be apparent to all but the most committedly blind among us that we as a society are way more interested in maintaining white supremacy by any means necessary than in actually solving social problems. So, anything that results in more blah people being killed, incarcerated, or routinely, ritually impoverished for generations is obviously the way to go, no matter how much blood and treasure we waste in the process. Come on, man!

  30. 30.

    retr2327

    For attorneys and others interested in devastating judicial takedown of the nonsensical arguments advanced by the DOJ in defense of Trump, today’s decision requiring the DOJ to turn over the Mueller grand jury materials sought by the House is required reading. One particular highpoint:

    “[The DOJ’s] arguments smack of farce. The reality is that DOJ and the White House have been openly stonewalling the House’s efforts to get information by subpoena and by agreement, and the White House has flatly stated that the Administration will not cooperate with congressional requests for information. See Letter from Pat A. Cipollone, Counsel to the President, to Representative Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, et al. (Oct. 8, 2019) at 2.”

    But there’s much more for legal nerds . . .

  31. 31.

    debbie

    @Betty Cracker:

    Forget the vape shops (and here the store owners are begging not to be closed). What about the more than 1,600 who have been diagnosed with lung disease and the 34 who have died?

  32. 32.

    mrmoshpotato

    @The Dangerman:

    Hope she has her life insurance premiums paid up and stays away from open windows on the upper floors.

    And loaded guns that could shoot her multiple times and anything she could beat herself to death with.

  38. 38.

    Aleta

    John Fritze @jfritze
    Per local pooler @MaayanSchechter covering the president’s remarks in South Carolina: “Benedict College spokeswoman Kymm Hunter told your pooler that nine students were confirmed, but two had ROTC training, meaning seven attended the president’s remarks on campus.”

    Oliver Willis @owillis

    (video)
    Trump compares systemic injustices in the U.S. justice system to the impeachment inquiry and his supposed persecution. Then he regurgitates the Fox News conspiracy theory about FBI agents. He is making this statement at a HBCU event about justice reform.

    Trump claims his daughter Ivanka helped “14 million people” get jobs. She did not.

    Trump says a lot of people “don’t know” that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and that he and other Republicans should talk about this historical fact more so they learn it. (People know Lincoln was a Republican)

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    @debbie

    Many factors to consider, such as –

    At what concentration?
    With what frequency?
    Which combustible solvent(s) were employed?

    just to list the tippy top of the iceberg.

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    @NotMax: I remember playing pretend Columbo in 7th grade and figuring out that the “murder” had been committed with “Pam” cooking spray – the victim’s lungs were coated with oil spray and they died of asphyxiation.

    Little did I know…

    Doesn’t all of this “vaping” stuff have various oils in it???

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  47. 47.

    NotMax

    @Another Scott

    Briefly looked into it a year or two back and quickly came to the conclusion the paraphernalia is too high maintenance for this simple soul. Mostly forgot specifics about the whole thing in the interim.

  48. 48.

    randy khan

    [s]Given his views on Butina, I assume Rep. Massie understands that asylum seekers might not have all of their paperwork in order and therefore is willing to give them a break.[/s]

  49. 49.

    justawriter

    Disconsolate conservatives with tears in their eyes stare at their hand and say, “It’s just you and me again Rosie.”

  50. 50.

    Aleta

    @NotMax: One article said that testing found trace residue of an agricultural fungicide* on some of the products turned over by injured people. The fungicide if burned may produce a form of cyanide. There was another incident in Canada years ago where it was found used on a mar. crop. Mildew is a common problem, but they’re not supposed to use that fungicide on that crop…

    * used in commercial farming, on tomatoes for ex

    Looked it up, its commercial name is Rally by Dow. It comes with a lot of rules.

    1–Rally® fungicide provides locally-systemic and long-lasting powdery mildew control for high and low pressure situations. Rally is also economical based on a favorable cost per acre and cost per day of control.

    
None of the fungicides registered for tomatoes are intended to be used curatively. Rather, fungicides should be used before the first signs of disease are visible, when conditions are favorable for disease development.

  52. 52.

    Redshift

    Sad that the BBC is still referring to get as a “gun rights activist.” Is it too much to ask that after a person is revealed to be an intelligence operative, news reports should assume their “job” is a cover rather than assuming it’s legit?

  54. 54.

    Raven

    @Aleta: I think you asked what fish you could not keep here on the gulf? Red Snapper (except on state boats that can only go 9 miles and that is just on weekends in October), Grey Triggerfish which are almost as plentiful as Snapper but most people say they are better eatin, and Grouper. That leaves Amberjack but we couldn’t go far enough out to catch them. I have a state boat trip booked for Sunday but it depends on the weather and whether I want to take a sure thing for Red Snapper or wait for a longer trip Monday and go after AJ’S. I tried to surf fish for 4 hrs this morning but there are 15-20 mph winds and it takes too much weight to hold the bottom so I’m reading books!

  56. 56.

    Ruckus

    @Miss Bianca:
    You’re right. Somedays I just can’t help myself to try to logically solve a problem, rather than stick my head in the sand and fuck over people because they don’t fit some preconceived bullshit notion of who is the better person.
    I’ll try to do better…….

  57. 57.

    RAVEN

    I want to give you a glimpse of what the other side is saying. This is Larry C Johnson, apparently ex CIA but also the guy who spread the phony Michelle Obama whitey smear:

    The announcement that this is now a criminal investigation means that anyone, including FBI agents and CIA officers, who try to hold back information or hide information will be vulnerable to obstruction of justice charges. Criminal penalties attach.

    Faced with possible charges of obstruction, FBI Director Christopher Wray and his sycophants last night folded like a cheap tent in a hurricane in terms of blocking release of the Inspector General report on FISA abuses. They also withdrew the FBI objections to the Exhibits that Sidney Powell had attached to her brief explaining why the FBI had engaged in criminal activity against her client, General Mike Flynn.
    When Durham goes to the CIA, the DIA and the NSA asking questions and demanding documents they must cooperate or face criminal charges. That is the gamechanger. President Trump granted Bill Barr full authority to declassify any classified information. That includes anything collected by the CIA or the NSA. Neither intelligence agency can hide behind the claim that something is classified. If they try, they will face being charged with obstruction of justice.

    Bill Barr has a spine of steel and plays by the book. He does not color outside the lines. I do not think the Deep State fully understands or appreciates the depth of peril they now face. The lies and the withholding of key documents that have been common practice over the last two and a half years will come to a screeching halt. At some point the lawyers for the media companies will wake up and realize that spreading lies on behalf of people facing criminal charges could expose them to obstruction charges as well.

    That is what last night means.

  60. 60.

    trollhattan

    @Aleta:
    IIRC vitamin E oil has also been found in samples provided by hospital admittees.

    One should in any case be very wary of the longterm effects of exposure to commercial vaping products as well.

    E-Cigarettes and lung tumors

    In this experiment, lead study author Moon-Shong Tang, Ph.D., a professor at New York University’s Department of Environmental Medicine, and a team of scientists investigated what happens to mice exposed to two types of vapor: nicotine-laden vapor from a e-cigarette and a vapor that contained two additives used in e-juice: propylene glycol (PG) and vegetable glycerin (VG), but no nicotine. Then, they compared those mice to a control group.

    These mice were literally surrounded by vapor for four hours per day for five days each week. This isn’t how a person would use an e-cigarette, which is an issue that this team has been criticized for in the past. Of the 40 mice exposed to the nicotine vapor, nine of them (22.5 percent) developed adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer. None of the 18 mice who were exposed to the PG or VG got lung cancer, and only one of the 18 mice in the control group got cancer.

    “Our results show that e-cigs are carcinogenic in mice,” Tang tells Inverse.

    E-cigarettes differ from traditional cigarettes largely because they don’t actually burn anything, but vaporize a liquid instead. Sidestepping the burning process means that e-cigarettes don’t release the 70-some dangerous chemicals, like carbon monoxide and benzene, that come from burning a tobacco product. That’s one of several reasons that e-cigarettes have been marketed as a safer alternative to smoking. But in February 2018, Tang and co-authors published a different study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences also suggesting that e-cigarettes pose a different kind of risk that could contribute to cancer.

    In that experiment, which evaluated mice and human cells, Tang showed that mice exposed to e-cigarette vapor ended up with DNA damage or the formation of DNA adducts, which are mutations in DNA that are often correlated with cigarette smoking. Tang explains that those two adducts “increase the susceptibility to mutations and tumorigenic transformation in human cells.” In other words, they open the door for the cells to become cancerous over time.

    However, when this paper was published several scientists took issue with the methodology. The mice were exposed to vapor in a way that wasn’t at all similar to the way a human would vape, and they didn’t expose any mice to tobacco smoke, so it was impossible to make that comparison to cigarettes directly. One of those commenters reported ties to the vape industry, but not all did.

    In response to those comments, Tang and his team doubled down on their findings: “Our results unambiguously demonstrate that ECS can induce DNA damage in the lung, heart, and bladder, as well as inhibit DNA repair in mouse lung,” they wrote in response to a critique in 2018.

    In this most recent study, the team built upon their 2018 results showing that once that door is open, tumors can form in mouse lungs. In a statement, the study co-author Herbert Lepor, M.D., explains that they do think it’s the DNA damage that’s to blame for the process:

    “Our results support the argument that the nicotine-derived DNA adducts are likely the main causes for carcinogenesis in mice exposed to e-cig smoke,” he said.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    There’s money in it, just not near as much and it’s harder to get away without paying taxes. Plus we tried this with prohibition and how well did that work out? Talk about not learning the lesson.

  62. 62.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @The Dangerman: Getting caught is part of the spy biz, more likely the Russians will make her an instructor at their Honey Trap training program.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    @HalfAssedHomesteader: Yeah, if there’s rich white people crime going on, we can give NYC and DC a run for their money. Lincoln Savings – local. Subprime mortgages, mostly invented here.

    There’s a reason why OC has been a republican stronghold – it facilitates our innate proclivity to fuck over poor people.

  65. 65.

    Mike G

    @Ruckus:

    We incarcerate a lot of people, to no actual success at stopping the use of drugs.

    Maybe because the main purpose of the War on Some Drugs is government-sanctioned punishing of certain kinds of people they don’t like. Bob Haldeman admitted Nixon’s War on Drugs was essentially a political weaponization to beat up on hippies, the antiwar movement and minorities.

  67. 67.

    Aleta

    @Raven: Good luck.
    Red snapper might be the same fish (bream) as one eaten in Japan at New Year’s or traditional marriage ceremony dinners. (Because its name has the same sound as one syllable of “congratulations” + red is a celebratory color.) So, a fancy fish, though as you say some others are more tasty.

  68. 68.

    JaySinWA

    @Aleta: I blew up today reading headline from PBS NewsHour claiming that it was released to “democrats”, not the House Judiciary committee. Politico and HuffPo used the same Republican framing. This needs pushback.

  70. 70.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Mike G: @Aleta:

    Trump says a lot of people “don’t know” that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and that he and other Republicans should talk about this historical fact more so they learn it.

    When I did Civil War reenactor our Lincoln impersonator was doing a nice side business as a prop at GOP fund raisers. Welcome to the Grand Old Party Donny 160 years to late.

  71. 71.

    hells littlest angel

    @RAVEN: Wow, so Larry Johnson HASN’T been assassinated by the Deep State. Guess that means the release of the Whitey Tape is still imminent.

  73. 73.

    Aleta

    @JaySinWA: That’s horrible—the framing of T’s obstruction as a war between D and R, even applied to a ruling in the court system, is exactly what Republicans have been working for. And T framed his 2016 campaign as that conflict, for-him vs against-him, precisely to attract and shift media coverage.

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    @Mike G:
    Was my point, just not directly stated, that there is a much differing rational about the drug wars than that drugs are bad for you. The tobacco industry was the same. They knew it was deadly and didn’t give a shit. That’s why Miss Bianca was poking at me, it’s logic vs reality/money.
    There are always underlying bullshit rationals for public policy that doesn’t make any logical sense at all. Like for profit schools, that only the people who can afford to pay for an education deserve one. That the wealthy must be better because they are wealthy. It’s never how or why and it’s never actually disclosed what the rational is, even when it’s obvious, like for profit schools.

  75. 75.

    trollhattan

    Eat up all that ice cream, Northern Californians!

    With extreme winds expected to raise wildfire risks across California this weekend, PG&E Corp. announced Friday it will probably cut power to 850,000 customers in the largest deliberate blackout so far.

    Citing winds that the National Weather Service said could surpass 65 mph, the troubled utility said the historic blackout could begin Saturday sometime between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. “Given the forecast and conditions, PG&E is advising its customers of the potential for a widespread (power shutoff) lasting several days, intended to prevent a catastrophic wildfire,” the company announced.

    The National Weather Service issued a “red flag” warning from 11 a.m. Saturday through 5 a.m. Monday. The blackout would cover parts of 36 counties, taking in much of PG&E’s 70,000 square miles of territory. It would be larger than the 790,000 customers who were shut off for up to three days Oct. 9.

  76. 76.

    Aleta

    Josh Dawsey @jdawsey1
    In new book, top Mattis aide said the defense secretary said he’d rather “swallow acid” than see Trump’s military parade, that Trump wanted to “screw” Amazon and that POTUS asked who really cared about Afghanistan.
    https://twitter.com/jdawsey1/status/1187039989458178048

    Another piece of news saved to reveal in a book. Was it, this time too, rationalized as “For the good of the country” ? That’s what remains in my mind as the gist of the Supreme Ct’s reason for stopping Florida’s recount in 2000, and I’m fed up with that excuse.

    Iirc, something similar was used to rationalize bailing T out of his casino bankruptcy.

    I can picture Rs repeating another version to each other over drinks at this very moment.

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Aleta: I saw something yesterday that General Himself is not happy about that book. Small wonder, the portion that was published in Politico made him look hapless and weak, and not for nothing made his own book look like the product of a weak and hapless man.

    It’d be a helluva thing if the person who saved the Republic was neither the hallelujah’d and hosanna’d Warrior Monk, nor the White Horse Mitt Romney and his landing strip shoulders, but the squirrelly little warmonger whose nomination to the UN made a Republican Senator weep on the Senate floor. And that’s kind of a best case scenario.

  80. 80.

    Mary G

    This maroon:

    To Tim: The Button on the IPhone was FAR better than the Swipe!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2019

    Sure, Apple will change a billion phones because the president tweets at “Tim.”

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    @debbie:
    Has the “steel spine” recently been injected into Wingnut vocabularies? Navarro was distributing them recently talking about how we’re screwing, er, making China behave high and hard. Trump was awarded several.

  82. 82.

    Martin

    @Mary G:

    [checks market]

    Yeah, I’m sure the 1.11 trillion dollar company, made on the back of the iPhone is going to change direction because some asshole doesn’t like a feature on that product.

  85. 85.

    Bill Arnold

    @Aleta:

    Trump says a lot of people “don’t know” that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and that he and other Republicans should talk about this historical fact more so they learn it. (People know Lincoln was a Republican)

    Also to the point, it took them 100 years, but the Republicans finally took over the traditionally and currently “cheap labor” (cough) region of the US in a partial swap for the North. Not the same party.

  87. 87.

    Fair Economist

    @Aleta:

    One article said that testing found trace residue of an agricultural fungicide* on some of the products turned over by injured people. The fungicide if burned may produce a form of cyanide.

    Cyanide isn’t a match to the symptoms. The victims were suffering either a chemical burn or an inflammatory response (two different pathology papers have reached different results.) Cyanide is a systemic poison.

    Other weird chemicals from heating fungicides (and a lot of other chemicals) could produce the observed chemicals, and that’s the leading suspicion. It doesn’t have to be one particular chemical, either.

  89. 89.

    trollhattan

    @debbie:
    “Trade wars are the easiest wars to win.” Said somebody really stupid. Navarro’s the one who keeps pushing Donny to add sanctions and needs to be on the tumbrel alongside Wilbur Ross.

  90. 90.

    gene108

    @Starfish:

    I don’t pay deep attention to rightwingers, but a number of rightwingers that feel she was innocent and was unfairly charged, but I do not get why they believe this about her.

    What’s their alternative? Accept that fact that when Putin schemed get at the weakest political links to break America, he settled on the Republican party being the most vulnerable. And the best way to get at them was through their gun fetish, with a phony Russian gun rights group.

    The operation seems largely successful. Several prominent Republicans were in her orbit. She was make inroads up the party’s hierarchy. The NRA got millions from the Russians, which they may or may not have laundered to run election ads supporting Republicans in 2016.

    The media is really letting the Republican Party off the hook. They should be asking, why a foreign adversary chose the Republican Party as the major political party to be used to undermine America?

    Republicans are catching a big break, because no one is directly linking them as facilitating Putin’s dirty work. All the coverage is just about defending Trump at all costs, because they will lose in a primary, if they don’t back Trump to the hilt. While true, it misses the bigger picture of how everything they do seems to be in Putin’s favor.

  91. 91.

    Jeffro

    #ButtHisVoiceMails is trending on Twitter…there is at least a LITTLE justice in this world! ;)

  93. 93.

    debbie

    @trollhattan:

    Yep, this is how easy this trade war was won:

    Last month the House of Representatives included in the federal continuing resolution a provision to increase the borrowing capacity of the USDA — thus raising the amount of taxpayer-backed bailout money available to distribute to farmers hurt by the trade war with China.

    According to the USDA, as of September 23, $8.6 billion had been dispersed to farmers across America throughout the first version of the Market Facilitation Program (MFP).

    Over one million applications were submitted to the Department of Agriculture for that $8.6 billion.

    Phase two of the MFP, which began taking applications on July 29, has dispersed $4.79 billion to 361,947 farmers and ranchers across the country.

    The total approved agriculture bailout money sits at a whopping $28 billion — well over double the roughly $12 billion used to bail out Detroit automakers during the Great Recession in 2009.

    This too is interesting:

    China has been labeled a “currency manipulator” by the United States (a charge, however, which some American economists say is an outright “myth”), has been accused of stealing intellectual property, and is being investigated for steel dumping (the process by which one saturates a market to drive down a competitor’s prices).

    These issues, and others like the oft-repeated “trade deficit” we have with China, are the reasons why President Trump has focused intently on what he sees as leveling the trade playing field.

    As far as how these abuses have affected Texas’ farmers specifically, Adams [director of TX Farm Bureau] said, “China has illegally subsidized their farmers by more than three times what we spend.”

    I’m so sick of Americans bitching about China’s subsidizing their industries when America does the very same thing!

  94. 94.

    Zelma

    @rikyrah:

    I watched most of the funeral and was moved by the tributes to this great man. Obama was eloquent, as expected and Clinton’s remarks were moving as well.

    For me – and I expect for most of us here – the funeral was a window into a world we are sadly unfamiliar with: the African American church. How different from my own staid Lutheranism and how spiritually powerful. And how realistically hopeful the message was. These folks know the forces arrayed against them and yet they soldier on.

    It was so fitting that the ceremony closed with “Lift Every Voice and Sing” which is sometimes called the African American national anthem. I have a Youtube version of that song among my Favorites. The tape dates from the Obama presidency and ends with a video of the family as they appeared before the crowd on election night. When I first saw it, I was moved to a sense of pride by this climactic moment. Now it drives me to tears and despair.

    But I came away from watching the ceremony determined to soldier on. If they can, so must we.

  95. 95.

    Aleta

    Pentagon awards controversial $10 billion cloud computing deal to Microsoft, spurning Amazon

    The Pentagon awarded its controversial $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft Friday evening, spurning a bid from Amazon after President Trump expressed opposition to giving the lucrative award to a company led by Jeff Bezos, one of his longtime rivals.

    The announcement comes after an intense lobbying effort and a lawsuit filed by some of America’s biggest tech companies, who accused the military of favoring Amazon in a process that has dragged on for more than a year. During that time, Trump and other administration officials also made it clear that they did not want the contract to go to Amazon. Federal acquisition laws forbid politicians, including the president, from influencing contract awards.

    The award is so large that it could tip the lucrative cloud computing business away from Amazon, which has long been the industry leader, in Microsoft’s favor. Amazon was openly described by competitors and industry analysts as a clear front runner to win the massive award, due to its years of experience handling classified data for the CIA. The company this year chose to build a massive second headquarters, a few miles from the Pentagon’s campus.

  96. 96.

    dmsilev

    @Mary G: Explanation: the iPhone’s FaceID system took one look at that hair and said to itself “that can’t be human”.

  98. 98.

    Ruckus

    @gene108:
    That is the reason that republicans are defending the scam. Most of the republican political class has to at least know about the russian money, if they haven’t knowingly taken any of it. It’s too obvious. It’s a house of cards and the more that go down the bigger the entire mess looks and most likely is. So they protest that it’s the democrats and the press that is the problem. Remember projection, misdirection and lying are the ways and means of a conman. And current republican politicians are conmen. Some have been for a long time, others are new and inexperienced at the game. But they got the most bumbling conman elected to be president and they aren’t giving up the fight easily.

  99. 99.

    Cacti

    Never thought I’d see the day that Republicans would defend the honor of a Russian spy caught red handed (no pun intended).

    How many of them did she sleep with?

  100. 100.

    Bill Arnold

    @Aleta:

    The Pentagon awarded its controversial $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft Friday evening, spurning a bid from Amazon after President Trump expressed opposition to giving the lucrative award to a company led by Jeff Bezos, one of his longtime rivals.

    This will become a serious shitshow. Overt expressed antipathy expressed by the POTUS and 10b dollars at stake., and Bezos does not like to lose and could e.g. afford to spend 10s of millions (or more) on ratfuckery.

  102. 102.

    TS (the original)

    @debbie:

    The total approved agriculture bailout money sits at a whopping $28 billion — well over double the roughly $12 billion used to bail out Detroit automakers during the Great Recession in 2009.

    Deficits don’t matter any more. That auto bail out was done by a Democratic president – of course it was disgusting & way too much. That it stopped a total economic collapse is irrelevant.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @Ruckus:
    A thought has been wallowing around in my brain for a while, that it’s possible that vlad doesn’t actually care that people know he got numbnuts elected because he gets pleasure out of fucking with the US. He’s not going to win militarily, or at least he wasn’t before trump, he had to play games to win. He just needed a person in the oval office with the brains of a bowl of mush and the balls of a very small mouse. And he found one who is also not all that bright so he probably was bought for what amounts to vlad as chump change. He probably chuckles to himself for an hour a day or more, just thinking about it. The old, racist republican leaders are all opportunists and saw an opening about as big as the grand canyon, all they had to do was play along. Of course that depended upon trump not being as much of an idiot as he’s been for 2 1/2 yrs.

  104. 104.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Aleta:

    Jeff Bezos, one of his longtime rivals

    Wait. Bezos is running for the Democratic nomination now? :)

    Silly Washington Post. There’s no rivalry. Dump is just a whiny little bitch.

  105. 105.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ruckus:

    A thought has been wallowing around in my brain for a while, that it’s possible that vlad doesn’t actually care that people know he got numbnuts elected because he gets pleasure out of fucking with the US.

    If Russki state TV is anything to go by, he wants us to know. They’ve been crowing about it since November 2016.

  107. 107.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: I just saw this tweet on the event:

    @ jdawsey1
    From Trump pool: “Your local pooler was able to get an updated number of Benedict College students who attended the remarks Friday. Benedict College spokeswoman Kymm Hunter told your pooler that nine students were confirmed, but two had ROTC training, meaning seven attended…”

    can that be real? Seven students in attendance?

  108. 108.

    TS (the original)

    @rikyrah: Some people still have principles. How on earth could the bloated liar, who uses the Department of Justice as his legal firm get an award that mentions the word Justice – let alone bipartisan. I guess this is his make believe Nobel.

    Awarding this to trump makes the actual award a 100% farce.

  110. 110.

    Ruckus

    @mrmoshpotato:
    I’m saying it’s not that he doesn’t care, he now wants us to know. It’s part of the plan, spread fear and calamity for a few bucks. Be able to actually control our government. That should be a very big deal to him. And OK we all know that it’s a big deal to him but I’m thinking this is/was always part of the plan, rub it in how fragile the system is if you break it from the top down. Which of course has always been a weak spot, if only that it takes either a pretty good person or a narcissistic ass to want that spot in the first place. Review the presidents of the last 75 yrs and tell me which fit into that mold. I’ll wait. A bit of help. Not all the democratic presidents have been the greatest but all of them were far and above the republican ones, with the exception of Ike who wasn’t all that bad. Still a republican but not the worst. Every single one of them has gotten worse, on a scale of 1 to 10 the last 3 are in the minus 100 category.

  111. 111.

    Ken

    @NotMax:

    Which combustible solvent(s) were employed?

    “Who knew a 50-50 mix of benzene and hydrazine wasn’t suitable?”

    Which prompts me to ask, how is vaping paraphernalia regulated, if it is? FDA? BATF?

  112. 112.

    TS (the original)

    Seems like the wapo has none left to give

    Trump wages battle against impeachment with a barrage of provocations, contradictions and exhortations

    As the first full month of his impeachment investigation began to wane, President Trump unleashed a rhetorical onslaught.

    He announced that his Democratic rivals are “crazy,” “hate our country” and “want to destroy America.” He apparently called the House speaker “a third-grade politician” to her face, labeled his GOP critics “human scum,” knocked his first defense secretary as “the world’s most overrated general” and argued that the Kurdish people of northern Syria “are no angels” as they faced Turkish invasion and fears of possible genocide.

    Could have left out the “apparently” – not quite there yet.

  114. 114.

    Kent

    One thing I really don’t understand is how Russia in it’s current state can be sustainable. Their economic growth is anemic if not negative. Other than fossil fuels, grain, and arms, they basically produce nothing that the rest of the world wants. The country is being robbed blind by all of Putin’s oligarchs who are stripping it bare and moving their funds overseas rather than investing locally. The whole place seems like a house of cards with nuclear weapons. If they keep chipping away at the foundations of their society and economy one thinks that eventually its all going to implode in spectacular fashion.

  115. 115.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:
    Vlad is spending a tiny bit of that stolen money to purchase the government of the US. So far he’s 2 out of 4 and he’s gaining on the third. All it took was understanding our current political situation, and arranging to having toddlers running one third of the federal government. The toddlers are doing the work themselves in the senate and transforming the USSC. And Vlad has bought it all for pocket change. He has no risk, the exposure won’t hurt him, the cost is small. It’s far safer than warfare, far less risky and while it can take longer a lot less bloodshed and money is spent. And all because half of our political system has been highjacked by conservatives who view themselves as saviors of a way of life that was always wrong and never existed in the form they think it did.

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