On 25 October and 12 November I defined what a Black PSYOP is, how it differs from normal Psychological Operations, debunked the conspiracies, misinformation, and agitprop at the root of the Black PSYOP that the President and his surrogates are trying to perpetrate on the American people, and delineated the four lines of operations up to mid November. The President’s surrogates, specifically elected Republican officials like Senator Kennedy (R-LA), have now rolled out the fifth line of operation in this Black PSYOP.
This fifth line of operation is to launder the completely debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine, through its elected and appointed officials, interfered in the 2016 US presidential election in the attempt to get Secretary Clinton elected by conspiring with Secretary Clinton, her campaign, the Democratic National Committee, the Obama administration, the DOJ’s National Security Division, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, the Director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, MI6 and other elements of British Intelligence, other allied intelligence services, and Alexandra Chalupa to subvert the election and prevent the President from being elected. And that Russia had nothing to do with trying to subvert the 2016 presidential election. Or, if Russia did, it was ineffective and no one in the President’s campaign, his businesses, or among his surrogates and supporters was involved in whatever it was Russia might or might not have been doing in 2016.
We know that this conspiracy theory and misinformation is NOT TRUE! IT IS A LIE! A fabrication of Russia’s leadership and intelligence services put out in an attempt to muddy the waters around what happened in the 2016 presidential election, further obscure Russia’s actions in and against Ukraine, make Ukraine the villain to justify the actions in and against Ukraine that Russia is trying to obscure, all so that Russia can get out from under the US sanctions against it. We know it’s a lie because last month US intelligence officials briefed members of the Senate and told them it was a lie and delineated its origins. We know it’s a lie because we have a transcript, posted by the Kremlin on the Kremlin’s outward facing English language website, of Putin making these claims in February 2017:
Second, as we all know, during the presidential campaign in the United States, the Ukrainian government adopted a unilateral position in favour of one candidate. More than that, certain oligarchs, certainly with the approval of the political leadership, funded this candidate, or female candidate, to be more precise. Now they need to improve relations with the current administration, and using a conflict to do so is always a better, easier way to draw the incumbent administration into addressing Ukrainian problems and thus establish a dialogue.
The fifth domestic line of operation of the Black PSYOP to remove the blame of interfering in the 2016 US presidential election from Russia and place it on Ukraine is to have presidential surrogates like Senator Kennedy (R-LA) go onto legitimate, mainstream news shows, such as the Sunday talk shows, and launder this misinformation and agitprop. The laundering of the information occurs once it’s been said on CNN, the three broadcast networks, and/or MSNBC. Then follow up reporting has been done on those networks about the claim, as well as in the major mainstream print and digital media. And even though this follow on reporting is all debunking, the misinformation and agitprop has been laundered through legitimate sources. Once that happens it is ready for weaponization on Facebook, Twitter, and the conservative digital and social media sites that Senator Kennedy and the other surrogates pushing the same conspiracy theory, misinformation, and agitprop were originally referencing as their sources. All that matters in this line of effort are the video clips of Senator Kennedy or other GOP elected and appointed officials above the CNN or MSNBC or broadcast network symbols looking into the camera and stating the agitprop. Once those exist they can and will be weaponized across social and digital media like Facebook and Twitter, as well as conservative social and digital media sites. And, of course, they’ll be picked up by Russia’s state media outlets like RT and Sputnik and spread to a whole different audience.
On average 2.3 million Americans watch the Sunday news talk shows on the three networks and Fox News Sunday. That’s not a lot. However, 43% of Americans get their news via Facebook. And among that 43%, 61% are women, and 62% are white. So if you can edit the footage of Senator Kennedy and other surrogates down to them just stating this conspiracy theory, misinformation, and agitprop on one of the Sunday news shows on NBC, ABC, CBS, and/or Fox News Sunday and put it out on Facebook, you’ve gone a long way to effectively weaponizing this misinformation and agitprop. From there it will get picked up and rebroadcast through a variety of different platforms and means. And, ultimately, the purpose isn’t to change anyone’s minds. It is to both reinforce the already held positions of the President’s supporters and to so confuse the actual, factual record of what happened in the 2016 presidential election that anyone who isn’t a political junkie or a committed political partisan just throws up their hands in disgust because it has been made impossible to tell the truth – that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to elect the President and ensure that Secretary Clinton would not and could not be elected – from the lie – that it was really Ukraine who interfered in the 2016 election by conspiring with Secretary Clinton and others to try to prevent the President from being elected. The point of this line of operation is to make it so that since nothing can be clearly demonstrated to be true, then anything and everything is possible.
It really doesn’t matter if Senator Kennedy (R-LA) believes the lies he’s peddling or if he knows that it is conspiracy theories, misinformation, and agitprop. I think he knows it is bullshit and the tell is his asserting that he never got the briefing that senior US intelligence officials provided to US senators last month. If he didn’t get the briefing then he really has no official information to rebut the less than reputable sources he’s citing. By being purposefully uninformed, by not taking the briefing, he’s able to say he doesn’t know which is true.
We have reached the point where elected US governmental officials are attempting to propagandize American citizens for partisan political purposes. It is illegal for government officials to propagandize Americans, though I highly doubt anything will be done and anyone will be held to account. But that is where we’re at. The real question has to be why Senator Kennedy has decided he needs to do this. Is it just fear of mean presidential tweet? Is it fear of being primaried or being voted out of office? Or is it fear of something else? Until or unless we get answers to those questions the only thing we can be certain of is that Senator Kennedy (R-LA) is promoting Russian misinformation and agitprop, which has been debunked by the US Intelligence Community.
We are off the looking glass and through the map!
Open thread.
TaMara (HFG)
Well now I’m depressed.
Mike in DC
Our post-Trump Russia policy should be simple:
расплата сука
Zinsky
Trump and his asshole handlers are referring to a few isolated editorials that were written by Ukranians or interviews granted to newspapers in 2016 that criticized Donald Trump as “meddling “.
Bullshit! Donald Trump is a criminal and Republicans better get used to that fact!
Adam L Silverman
Herein concludes the third part of the Black PSYOP series. Our heroes are scattered and demoralized, their fellowship broken, and hope is in short supply…//
Adam L Silverman
@TaMara (HFG): You’re welcome!
Adam L Silverman
@TaMara (HFG):
NotMax
Somehow fits in as accompaniment to the vapid bromidic rubbish Kennedy and his ilk are spewing.
Major Major Major Major
Sigh!
A good post as always, Adam, thanks.
In open news thread, just put on the new season of bake-off. Cake week.
ETA really identifying with the nervous gay one who keeps cutting his fingertips
tobie
The crazy thing about this conspiracy theory is the timeline. If I get this right, the conspiracy theorists are claiming that Ukraine made it look like Russia helped Donald Trump get elected to delegitimize his Presidency. Since they also claim that Ukraine was helping HRC, this would have to mean that Ukraine knew in advance that HRC would lose and that Trump would win, so already during the 2016 campaign they were planting seeds to raise questions about his victory later. We’re so far gone as a country that this doesn’t immediately strike people as insane.
Gin & Tonic
While Kennedy and other useful idiots spread Russian propaganda, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians continue to die in a war of aggression launched and maintained by Russia.
And Apple caves in to Russian pressure and officially acknowledges Russia’s unlawful annexation of Ukrainian territory, while Macron suggests the EU should accommodate Putin. This is not going to end well.
Bill Arnold
Already indexed by google, FWIW.
(keywords kennedy fabrication ukraine – forgot to add, past 24 hours)
Adam L Silverman
@tobie: It makes as much sense as Clinton, Clapper, Brennan, Comey, with Obama’s okay, did all this to prevent the President from being elected, but kept it so compartmented that no information was released until after the President was elected.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: I’m planning a post on that for tomorrow. Provided my day doesn’t get away from me.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Which aspect?
Kristine
I am really getting tired of living in interesting times.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: This aspect:
Cheryl Rofer
This is the question I asked the other day, in a different context. Our media are negligent in not pursuing it.
Wag
@Mike in DC:
это
I had to use google to translate your Russian phrase, but the only correct response is “This”
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: I’d also like someone to ask him, his seven colleagues who accompanied him, and then Senator Paul who went several months later, exactly what they were doing in Moscow for the 4th of July in 2018. Or, in Paul’s case, when he went that fall. Who exactly they met with, what was discussed, what they were told and/or shown, things like that.
tobie
@Adam L Silverman: True enough. In Trumpistas’ warped minds, the deep state tried to take Trump down but he outfoxed them, though his base will also claim that he’s constantly being undermined by the deep state. Or some such nonsense. My head hurts trying to make sense of this.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: The little that has come out of that meeting seems to be contradictory. When I was preparing my post, I found a couple of articles saying that, but I was focusing elsewhere, so I didn’t use them. There’s some information out there, but not much.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I hate Tim Cook. Steve Jobs would never have caved to Russia.
Faithful Lurker
The thing that I find interesting is that Sen. Kennedy R-LA is not a stupid man. He was valedictorian of his high school class, graduated from Vanderbilt U as a Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, Law degree from Uof V, where he was editor of the LAW Review and earned a Bachelors Degree with first class honors from Oxford U. in England. His Foghorn accent hides a very good brain, so what the hell is he doing? Does Putin have compremat on him? Inquiring minds want to know.
Yarrow
Thank you, Adam. Have you explained this to John? I was so disappointed to see his post earlier. It’s like he hasn’t paid any attention to your posts here or even learned from what’s been obvious over the last three years. This stuff is so obvious and it’s not that hard to see.
From your post:
It’s a bigger fear than just of being primaried or voted out of office. You can see the fear in his eyes. Someone has something on him that he’s afraid will get out or something worse than that even.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Yep. Little info and what there is doesn’t line up. And the 8 senators, including Paul from his later trip, and one representative aren’t talking and aren’t being asked either.
UncleEbeneezer
We seem to be light years away from the map.
jayjaybear
I hate to tiptoe over a line, but I’m kind of hoping for actual firing squads once the real Americans take back the country from these cowardly quislings in the GOP…
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: John could be right and I could be wrong. But I think in this case I’m more likely to be correct. Doesn’t make me better and him worse.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: @Adam L Silverman:
I think it matters less what they talked about and more that they went to Russia on the 4th of July. It’s a way for their boss to show dominance. Make them visit on America’s Independence Day. And they did as ordered. If anyone here was paying attention they’d be horrified.
I read something saying they’d hoped to meet with Putin but the meeting didn’t happen. Who knows if that’s true, but if it is it doesn’t surprise me. It’s a power move by a boss to dangle a meeting and then not show up.
Adam L Silverman
@UncleEbeneezer:
Bill Arnold
@Yarrow:
Another reason to ask him [1] directly why he was in Moscow July 4 2018. , as Adam and various others suggest.
[1] and the others.
NotMax
@jayjaybear
That’s not tiptoeing, that’s a standing broad jump. And well beyond the pale, IMHO.
debbie
@Yarrow:
But why did they want to meet with Putin?
Adam L Silverman
@jayjaybear: You may want to recalibrate just a wee bit there.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Word is he makes the best blintzes and serves them with a lovely tea blended specially to his specifications.//
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: He stated that Sen. Kennedy honestly believes the things he said and that “these are the people running the country and they are dumb as a stump.” None of us know if Sen. Kennedy believes what he said but we all know he is not “dumb as a stump.” It’s like missing the elephant in the room. to go with the “he’s dumb” take on the interview rather than look at the broader situation.
Xavier
We will not know why Senator Kennedy is pushing this line until we see Trump’s financial records.
Yarrow
@Bill Arnold: I’m in complete agreement they should all be asked why they were in Moscow on the 4th of July, 2018. No argument from me. They should have been asked right away upon their return and they should have been continued to be asked about it every time anything even tangentially related to the region comes up. Our media has failed us.
Yarrow
@debbie: Who knows? Because they would feel important if the boss decided to meet with them? Because they were worried they’d pissed him off and wanted to reassure him they were still on his side? Because they wanted to beg him not to release whatever kompromat he has on them?
Cheryl Rofer
@Yarrow: I would say it’s all of the above. I would very much like to know what went on in the meetings – were promises made? Propaganda lines offered?
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Blinis, maybe. Blintzes, nyet.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: I agree the meetings would be interesting to know about. I still think the more important issue was that they went on the 4th of July. It’s such a subservient move by those Members of Congress. That it didn’t get a massive amount of attention is such a failure by our media. Not that that’s any surprise. The actual content of the meetings could easily be uninteresting. A show of dominance by Putin/Russia of getting all those MoC to go to Russia on America’s Independence Day is just kind of breathtaking.
Cheryl Rofer
@Yarrow: Don’t miss the forest for the trees!
jl
Several European intelligence agencies got so far up inside the Russian hacking and social media operation that they recorded them doing it in real time. So, are the Democrats going to present that evidence? Or, they can’t for some reason?
Also, in case I missed it above, good to remember that the Russians hacked the GOP too. But, the Russians, for some reason or other (hey, your guess is as good as mine) decided not to release any of it. That may explain the fear we see in many of the most culpable Republicans’ eyes. Probably got something on them, corrupt money trails, talk that will lose them their seats. Maybe their were dirt files on some of them with info on boy toys, or girl toys, or who knows how many mistresses. Or a clip of them kicking a puppy. Or something.
Since Russians didn’t release anything, our miserable failed corporate media experiment decided it was not news and didn’t happen. Now, it seems to have gone down the memory hole, but it really can’t have, since most of the corporate news media celebs are not quite that pathetically stupid.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: In your view, which part is forest and which part is trees?
jayjaybear
I understand the concern, but we’re talking about actual, real-time, right in your face treason that’s being perpetrated by almost every Republican politician and functionary right now. Our entire political system has been and continues to be made completely dysfunctional by what is supposed to be a legitimate political party. I don’t know where we go from here if we just slap these people on the wrist once it’s all over.
Nelle
I was living in Kansas when our senator, Jerry Moran, went to Moscow. I and many others challenged him repeatedly over this trip. His reined was that the US ambassador to Russia invited them and it was just a friendly meeting. No real answer. He’s slippery in all his responses.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I did a front page post way back in December of 2016 about the fact that the Russians hacked the Republicans as well as the Democrats, but other than a couple of pointless releases of not very important information about Lindsey Graham, nothing has ever been released.
Cheryl Rofer
@Yarrow: I’m just saying that, while you may be outraged by the obvious symbolism of the visit being on our national day, don’t toss out all the other stuff that may be there.
As Adam and I are saying, the media should be asking those Republicans what they were doing there and using other investigative means to find out. We need to know.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: I also mentioned it in my recent post.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: Balloon Juice: We’re Nothing if Not Thorough!
Bill Arnold
From the reporting, e.g.
Sen. Kennedy says both Ukraine and Russia interfered in 2016 election, despite intelligence community’s assessment (Felicia Sonmez, Dec. 1, 2019)
Does anyone have links to said articles? (I’ll wager that he is not characterizing them honestly.)
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: I’m in complete agreement with you, as I said above, that the media should be asking every one of those people who went what they were doing there, who they met with, what was discussed, where they went and so forth. It should have happened the moment they returned and it should be brought up again every time something related to Russia happens. You’ll get no argument from me there.
Even a step back from that, though is that they went at all. Just bringing up that fact–they went to Russia on America’s Independence Day–would be a good start. Bring it up. Get it attached to their name. Make it a talking point fact about each one of them. That can move the conversation from the fact that they went to why they went. It’s highly questionable that they went at all. Let them start explaining it.
mrmoshpotato
Hell of a laundry list there, Adam, but you forgot Moose and Squirrel, Boris and Natasha, and Fearless Leader. (continues reading)
Martin
Don’t worry Adam, CNN is on it.
She’s so famous, they didn’t even need to print her name.
jl
@mrmoshpotato: Not that I’m paranoid, but has anyone ever seen Moose and Squirrel, and Mr. Moose and Mr. Bunny Rabbit in the same place at the same time?
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
The real question has to be why Senator Kennedy has decided he needs to do this. Is it just fear of mean presidential tweet? Is it fear of being primaried or being voted out of office? Or is it fear of something else?
So, Trump is pushing the lie that Ukraine was involved in meddling with the election. Why? At Putin’s request/demand?
And previously Devin Nunes and now Kennedy are the front men in defending Trump and pushing any lie related to Ukraine in order to support him.
The GOP knows this is a lie, and so far, the intelligence community also firmly says that this is a lie.
So, the government of the United States is at war with itself. The president is a liar and his party backs him up.
We cannot expel every Republican member of Congress. So how do we resolve this?
mrmoshpotato
@jayjaybear: Woah there Simba. We need charges, trials and convictions before we talk sentencing.
Rule of law and whatnot.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow:
And also a “What the fuck is this shit? Fucking Russthuglicans!”
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: You keep that wonderful ‘b’ word out of Putin’s whore mouth!
Mmmm….. blintzes.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: @Cheryl Rofer:
Thanks for reminding me that you covered the hack of the GOP.
But my main question is why so little attention to the slam dunk evidence that Russia did a huge amount of the 2016 hacking and social media disinformation campaigns. One country captured the operation key stroke by key stroke. Another caught them all on camera at the water coolers, and wandering up and down the halls getting coffee taking bathroom breaks. And I think the latter evidence was used for several of Mueller’s indictments, maybe arrests (I forget).
Why is this evidence not broadcast everywhere by the Democrats?
mrmoshpotato
@jl: OH. MY. GOD. (gasps in horror)
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
Poked a bit. Some weak sauce at Washington Examiner:
Alexander Vindman’s advice for Ukraine to ‘stay out of US politics’ came too late (Eddie Scarry, November 19, 2019)
which links
George Kent must not read the New York Times, which broke the story about Ukraine’s 2016 election interference (Eddie Scarry, November 13)
Which suggests that Paul Manafort did not have agency re his crimes: “But it’s also true that Ukraine put Trump’s campaign chairman in prison.”
and also links what seems to be the key piece (long):
Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire – Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton. (KENNETH P. VOGEL, DAVID STERN, 01/11/2017)[1]
Also weak sauce IMO, mostly involving Manafort.
And one narrative could go
July 24 Mueller testifies to Congress. Narrative at the end of the day is that it was a flop
July 25 (9:03 AM) Trump calls Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy, in what reads like an extortionist’s call to anyone but Trump loyalists.
[1] Week prior to this, early in the week Trump claimed to know more about hacking than the US intelligence agencies (or anyone iirc), then changed his tune slightly after being briefed about DNC hacking. (I have my own reading of that.)
Yarrow
@jl: Some of it isn’t available since it’s classified or whatever. Some is being used in ongoing cases/trials so can’t be discussed publicly. Some isn’t the property of the US. Also, Democrats very often aren’t great at politics. Good at policy but politics…notsomuch.
Yarrow
Related to all this except it’s more about China:
NotMax
@Bill Arnold
The Examiner is not exactly (how to put it) an unimpeachable source.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: ITMFEA?
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: I do not know how it is resolved.
Aleta
In what ways do these ideas differ from what Malcolm Nance has been writing about in his “The Plot to” books? (I think the first of those books came out at the time of 2016 election.) In interviews this fall, he’s been talking about black propaganda and what the GOP is doing. (I haven’t seen him on cable or read criticisms of his claims.) I guess I’m wondering how one figures out the boundaries between speculation, projection (imagining other people’s motivations) and which parts seem grounded enough to stand on. (Hard to find words for this.)
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Back in 2004 through 2006 when Keith Olberman was still on MSNBC and would cover election related shenanigans, largely perpetrated by state and local Republican officials, as an answer to the question why it wasn’t being covered thoroughly by the media, explained that the story was too much for them. That if you actually took hold of the loose threads and pulled on them, what the investigative work showed was a systematic Republican attempt to not just suppress votes, but to actually fix elections using the power of the state and under the color of law. And that most journalists, reporters, news anchors, and commentators – paid contributors and non paid contributors alike – just couldn’t bring themselves to tell the American people that one of the two political parties we permit ourselves were actively trying to leverage the power of the state and the power of law to rig, fix, and if necessary steal elections. That the entire basis for self government had been destroyed by one of the two parties for purely partisan gain.
I suspect that it is something similar here. Could you imagine the emotional and mental distress it would take for Chuck Todd to report what I’ve written just in these three posts on the Black PSYOP that’s being run? Not to make light of those with real mental illness and emotional distress, but they’d have to medicate him. The same goes for almost all the rest. The news media is owned by people who are in the business of making money, not in the business of providing the necessary information to create a well informed citizenry so they are enabled to effectively participate in self government.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: As for why the Democrats don’t broadcast this stuff 24/7/365, the answer is that the Democrats may be much better on policy than the Republicans, but they are inherently bad at politics.
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: Every bit of reporting goes back to one of two starting points. Either Ken Vogel’s original, misleading, and factually inaccurate piece in Politico or John Solomon’s “reporting” at The Hill. Everything is built on that, laundering these sources of badly reported misinformation through successive publications until they wind up cited in what are considered legitimate and mainstream publications like The New York Times or The Economist or The Financial Times.
Duane
@mrmoshpotato: The DOJ is pushing hard to restart federal executions. If Trumpov had any foresight he might rethink that
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: OT: The other night in one of the late evening/early morning posts you asked me a question. I had gone to bed and didn’t see the question till the next morning when the thread was really dead. If you email me the question, I’ll answer it.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman:
This is the big issue. They want eyeballs and clicks and shares and likes, not to inform and be good citizens. It makes it very easy for them to be corrupted and used.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I do not remember the question. Do you remember which thread?
Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: Not sure as I only skimmed his first book. Nance is on target, though as you can read in my stuff here, I take the analyses some places he doesn’t based on differences in education and experience and expertise. And it is important to remember that I started writing about this stuff publicly here several months before he was even tweeting about it and talking about it on MSNBC, let alone before his first book was published. I started working Russian active measures in January 2014 vis a vis what was going on in Ukraine with the Maidan movement when I was assigned to the US Army Europe Commanding General as his cultural advisor. I was assigned to work on the Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative stuff he’d been tasked with, but as his cultural subject matter expert, and the only one he had, I took the initiative and started digging in to what was going on in Ukraine and what Russia was doing. I’ve been tracking it and working it ever since.
The real difference is that I don’t have an MSNBC contributor contract, a funding stream for my own research group, and several research assistants to help me write books on the topic. I work in this space and when I can, I write about what I think is important on it here. That’s it. I don’t begrudge Nance his success or his notoriety, but none of us are really creating anything new here. Just a number of people on a variety of platforms all getting on to the same target from different and/or overlapping vectors because of differences in education, experience, and/or expertise.
Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: The answer to this, specifically:
Is this type of analysis is more artisanry than science. While it is rooted in social and behavioral sciences methods, a lot of experience and expertise comes into play. Which, to be honest, is also the case for most social and behavioral science research.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Whichever one on either Thursday or Friday night I was commenting in. If that helps.
Adam L Silverman
And with that, I’m racking out. Catch everyone on the flip.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Also, I’m racking out, so if you find it, feel free to email it to me as I’m shutting down for the night.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
They’ll soon be returning to Sunset Blvd.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Ok. Thanks.
Sebastian
I guess the only thing saving us now is that Fat Donnie had a stroke and will be useless in the debates (if it ever gets there)
mrmoshpotato
@Duane: I’m not saying No to the death penalty. I’m saying charges and trials come first.
Duane
@mrmoshpotato: Absolutely agree.
Mandalay
@jayjaybear:
Stop posting vile drivel. Just stop.
Ruckus
@jayjaybear:
There is a difference between punishment and a firing squad. A huge fucking difference. Don’t be them, be better. If the president and the members of congress who went to Russia on July 4th are found guilty of conspiring to fix elections, accepting money from a foreign government, etc, there are appropriate punishments that can be handed out. But capital punishment isn’t or shouldn’t be one of them.
Be Better.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
The news media is owned by people who are in the business of making money, not in the business of providing the necessary information to create a well informed citizenry so they are enabled to effectively participate in self government.
This deserves a replay.
I’ve been saying that the people who own the media are in this for the money and the big money is made by republican policies, like trump’s tax cut, which gave billionaires a huge tax break, as in just made them more billions. They are already greedy, and what they want is to be wealthier. Which trump did for them and which is the only thing they give a fuck about. They have far more than enough money to buy anything they think they need, a small army or a small government or whatever….. We need a government, they don’t. And if they complain about it, what happens to them? They lose power and therefore money.
Our government runs OK because there is a limited access to pure, raw power. Or at least there was. We better hope that last sentence isn’t true because our government is set up to be run but not totally controlled by the people with the most power, and that is rich people. They have managed to control it pretty tightly with small tidbits of freedom and equality every so often but they seem to be getting greedier and that’s not good for the rest of us. And it gets worse. 19 states have purchased Chinese made voting machines, arranged by a trump. That doesn’t send a chill up a spine ahead of a major national election?
trnc
@Cheryl Rofer:
I don’t doubt these as possible reasons, even though it seems insane that any elected official would be worried about going against DT given his track record in the last year of NOT getting his preferred candidates elected.
Steeplejack (phone)
Just got the dreaded 502 “bad gateway” error on the newer post upstairs. First time for me. And it’s only that one. This page refreshed fine. So it doesn’t appear to be a site-wide issue.
Paul in Saint Augustine
@ Adam L Silverman
Maybe I missed this, but why don’t the intelligence people who informed the Senators about this release the names of those people? I’m sure a good number of their constituents would raise hell with these elected officials about their malfeasance.
Steeplejack
RC is showing 11:01.
ETA: Now updated.