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You are here: Home / Politics / America / The Real Purpose of the Leak of the Zarif Interview Tape: Dirty Up John Kerry

The Real Purpose of the Leak of the Zarif Interview Tape: Dirty Up John Kerry

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Cole asked what the takeaways are from The New York Times reporting on a leaked tape of an interview with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif. As I put in a comment in that post, there are four. I’m going to copy and paste them below, but then I want to really focus on the fourth one because I think that’s the real tell.

  1. There are three possible leakers of the tape: Israel, Russia, or Iran’s Quds Force. All three don’t want the nuclear deal back on the table for different reasons, though some of them overlap. In the case of Israel, Bibi is desperate to maintain a foreign threat that only he can safely lead Israel against. And he definitely does not want Iran to be incentivized to open up to the west, which will have profound impacts on Iranian society, economy, and ultimately politics. Without Iran, Israel has no foreign threat for Bibi to rail against as an existential problem that requires his experienced leadership to survive. Russia doesn’t want the deal because it also doesn’t want an Iran incentivized to come in from the cold in order to get out from under sanctions. Doing so would open up Iran, which would have profound impacts on Iranian society, economy, and ultimately politics. An isolated Iran needs Russia. The Quds Force is working this angle from the other direction – internal to Iran instead of external. Anything that potentially empowers the more moderate reformist elements, that potentially leads to a relaxation of sanctions, that potentially leads to Iranians actually being able to interact with Americans and Europeans on a more regular basis weakens the Quds Force. Because if real, legitimate political reform ever comes to Iran, it has to come at the expense of the Quds Force.
  2. While all of these three have means, motive, and opportunity to have gotten the audio and leaked it, the leak was done to make it harder to reach a deal to get Iran either back into the JCPOA or into a new, revised version of it.
  3. If Israel is the leaker on this, the Quds Force and the other elements of Iranian security and intelligence are fully puckered right now. Being able to get hands on to this indicates a level of Israeli intelligence penetration into Iranian elite circles that is beyond what we know and suspect based on reporting.
  4. Someone really wants to dirty up John Kerry. Given that Putin has been working this angle, as I’ve covered here repeatedly on the front pages, since May 2014 when the initial agitprop plant of misinformation was placed in RIA Novosti against Biden, Kerry, and Cheney, via attacks on their children, because all were being discussed as possibly running for president in 2016. Is this an indicator that Russia is the leaker? I don’t know. I just find it curious that Russia has previously tried to ensure that Kerry looks bad, so this might be a two birds, one stone type of thing. Especially as Putin does not want to see any action on climate change because of his own strategy to leverage its effects to the benefit of Russia. And yes, I know, that strategy is stupid and its objectives are not achievable.

This is the specific portion of The New York Times reporting dealing with Secretary Kerry:

Former Secretary of State John Kerry informed him that Israel had attacked Iranian interests in Syria at least 200 times, to his astonishment, Mr. Zarif said.

While it follows a section about how the US, presumably US intelligence, knew about the Quds Force’s reprisal strike on US forces stationed at the Balad Air Base in Iraq before the Quds Force informed Zarif, the sentence about Kerry just sticks out like a very out of place sore thumb. It is completely out of context and contextless. Did Kerry do this when he was Secretary of State, pursuant to a strategy of confidence building with Zarif around the JCPOA negotiations that was deconflicted and cleared with the Director of National Intelligence and Director of Central Intelligence or was this Kerry just shooting the breeze with Zarif sometime after the change of administration between January 2017 and January 2021? We don’t know because the reporter, in his reporting, doesn’t provide us any context.

There has been a concerted effort by Putin, via his active measures campaign, to dirty up very specific American politicians who he believes are or would be detrimental to his interests. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Dick Cheney. As I wrote way back in November of 2019, Putin first planted the agitprop about Hunter Biden in a Russian state backed news outlet- RIA Novosti – as part of a black PSYOP strategy to launder the misinformation through legitimate, or perceived to be legitimate outlets, to dirty up potential presidential candidates. You’ll notice the three names in the highlighted portion below: Biden, Cheney, Kerry in the question from the RIA-Novosti reporter to a peace activist no one has ever heard of outside of the people that read his blog.

RIA_Novosti

And right on time, the usual people in the US bit on what seems to be a singular contextless throw away sentence about Secretary Kerry. All of these below, with the exception of the two Brad Moss tweets and the Stefanik tweet courtesy of commenter Jim, Foolish Literalist, are from just doing a keyword search for “John Kerry” using Twitter’s search function. There are dozens and dozens I’m not including here so as to not gunk up the front page, but this is now on fire in Republican and conservative political, news, and social media circles. The Daily Wire, that’s Shapiro’s agitprop outfit, has picked it up, which means it is now all over Facebook where he’s got dozens of sock puppets pushing his garbage into everybody’s feeds, so the real purpose of this leak in terms of US politics, policy, and strategy is completely successful.

Here’s the link to the search if you want to copy and paste it and see for yourself: https://twitter.com/search?q=john%20kerry&src=typed_query

Current Trump spokesman:

Former Trump spokesman:

The National Review:

Amazingly enough Fox News almost gets it right:

By Fox almost gets it right, I mean that they recognize that the real news in the reporting about the leaked tape is this one out of place, contextless sentence about John Kerry. It is a bombshell because it was intended to be a bombshell. It is a piece of contextless information placed in the middle of an article about an oral history interview given by Iran’s foreign minister that largely confirmed what all of us who actually pay attention to Iran for professional reasons already know. And we already know it largely because of open source reporting, not even anything classified. I can think of over three dozen news reports about Israel striking Iranian targets in Syria without expanding much effort. So this isn’t exactly a state secret in the US, Israel, or Iran.

And this brings us back to the real purpose of the leak. A lot of people are going to focus in on it undermining Zarif and the other members of his reformist party in the civilian facade government ahead of Iranian elections. Others will focus on it undermining attempts by the Biden administration to either get Iran back into the JCPOA or into a new, revised JCPOA. But the Quds Force attempting to prevent that, let alone Bibi or Putin attempting to prevent it, are also not a state secret. The only thing Bibi hasn’t done to tell everyone that’s one of his objectives is host a 24 hour global telethon with that as the theme like Jerry Lewis used to do for MDA every year.

The real purpose of the leak was to get that one, contextless sentence about John Kerry into the reporting. It sticks out like a sore thumb visible from space because it is supposed to stick out like a sore thumb visible from space! The objective here is two fold. The first is to undermine Kerry, who is currently the Special Envoy for Climate Change so that he has to either step down or be fired. That really won’t stop the Biden administration’s efforts on climate change as President Biden will just appoint someone else. The second is to damage President Biden and his administration. So far nothing, and I do mean nothing, has been able to stick. Nothing about Hunter Biden has stuck. Major Biden’s nipping didn’t stick. President Biden has dementia and is being manipulated by VP Harris hasn’t stuck. President Biden is a tool of the Chinese Communist Party, which is the term now doing business for Republicans and conservatives for the People’s Republic of China and everything to do with the People’s Republic of China which is scary because it’s communist, ooga booga! So now, it is going to be all about how President Biden failed to vet John Kerry properly before appointing him the Special Envoy for Climate Change. John Kerry is clearly working for the Iranian government, there’s collusion, we HAVE COLLUSION, IT’s IRANIAN COLLUSION WITH THE DEMOCRATS!!!!! And, finally, can we really say that President Biden didn’t know all the time and that he’s not also, secretly colluding with Iran?

That’s the real news here. This was a hit job on John Kerry, and through John Kerry on President Biden and his administration, masquerading as a leaked oral history interview. That one, contextless, seemingly throw away sentence about John Kerry was the whole point. A perfectly executed black PSYOP. And everyone in Republican politics, the conservative movement, and conservative news, digital, and social media is going to hammer it until they can’t get any further use for it. You all thought Senator Cotton was obnoxious for stating he was holding up all US Attorney appointments, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just watch, he’ll be holding up all the nat-sec nominations as a result of this too.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

110Comments

  3. 3.

    Lum's Better Half

    The Israeli attacks on Iranian forces in Syria are “secret” in the same way that the Vietnam-era bombings in Cambodia were “secret;” i.e., never to the targets.

  4. 4.

    germy

    AN INTRUSION

    Morality put her toe into international politics and it was promptly chopped off.

    “A thousand thanks,” said Diplomacy, with an engaging bow; “we will keep it in memory of a most distinguished honor.”

    And Morality has limped a little ever since.

    (Ambrose Bierce, 1911)

  5. 5.

    VOR

    Another reason is projection. Remember when TFG leaked intelligence about an Israeli covert operation to the Russian Ambassador and Foreign Minister during a White House visit? Remember when TFG tweeted top secret reconnaissance photos which revealed our photo-reconnaissance capabilities? So they are probably softening the ground ahead of a reveal of another TFG or TFG administration intel leak.

  6. 6.

    LeftCoastYankee

    There’s a small part of me that thinks this will prove too complicated for the echo chamber to maintain (w/o external prompting), since proving wrongdoing requires actual facts and research, etc.
    I think we’re still in the world of if the MSM finds (or deems) it is a nothing-burger, it will just become another RWNJ summoning phrase. If the MSM decides it needs “serious investigations”, then it will be a pain in the ass.

    The Great Hamburger Crisis of 2021 is the Loony-spheres functional level of sustained outrage. Totally made up conspiracies are much easier (fun?) to sustain, since they’re immune to reason and logic from the outset, and serious people are more reluctant to engage them directly (well, other than pointing and laughing).​​​

  7. 7.

    germy

    So what does John Kerry do?

    Does he address this and say the story is bullshit?

    Ignoring accusations didn’t work when he ran for president.

  8. 8.

    jonas

    @VOR: Don’t forget also tipping off the North Koreans (and everyone else in the world) about how many US subs were near the Korean peninsula…

    Every accusation a confession. Always.

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    Thanks for this.

    Maybe you’re right. They (the Teabaggers and their peanut gallery) do use the same tactics over and over and over again. But (perhaps naively) I can’t believe this is going anywhere against Kerry (nor Biden).

    Of course diplomats say all kinds of things in private, things that would be “shocking, shocking” if out in public. Film at 11.

    My gut tells me this has more to do with internal Iranian politics and trying to affect it. The hard liners (as you say) have interests in preventing JCPOA-II and weakening the civilian leadership is one way to do that. It’s not always about us (and I’m not saying you’re saying it is. ;-).

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Another Scott: I’m not saying it is going to work, but for the domestic US audience, the purpose of the leak was to hit Kerry and Biden through Kerry.

  13. 13.

    germy

    @Another Scott:  But (perhaps naively) I can’t believe this is going anywhere against Kerry (nor Biden).

    I hope you’re right, but it’s all over the news.  Even my local news outlets are running with it.

    I expect the CBS, NBC and ABC evening news will all be leading off with it.

    I remember when those news outlets spent three days covering Rep. Omar’s “Benjamins” remarks.  But they didn’t report on Gaetz bringing a holocaust denier to the SOTU.

  14. 14.

    Another Scott

    @germy: I’m reminded of the RWNJs going nuts over Kerry making some “off-hand” remark about the chemical weapons in Syria that DESTROYED the US position.  But actually paved the way for Assad to (mostly at least) give up his chemical weapons.

    Things always go badly if we panic and start beating up on our team.  It’s good to wait – our people generally know what they’re doing, and we cannot prevent the other side from making stuff up…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    The real purpose of the leak was to get that one, contextless sentence about John Kerry into the reporting. It sticks out like a sore thumb visible from space because it is supposed to stick out like a sore thumb visible from space! The objective here is two fold. The first is to undermine Kerry, who is currently the Special Envoy for Climate Change so that he has to either step down or be fired. That really won’t stop the Biden administration’s efforts on climate change as President Biden will just appoint someone else. The second is to damage President Biden and his administration. So far nothing, and I do mean nothing, has been able to stick. Nothing about Hunter Biden has stuck. Major Biden’s nipping didn’t stick. President Biden has dementia and is being manipulated by VP Harris hasn’t stuck. President Biden is a tool of the Chinese Communist Party, which is the term now doing business for Republicans and conservatives for the People’s Republic of China and everything to do with the People’s Republic of China which is scary because it’s communist, ooga booga! So now, it is going to be all about how President Biden failed to vet John Kerry properly before appointing him the Special Envoy for Climate Change. John Kerry is clearly working for the Iranian government, there’s collusion, we HAVE COLLUSION, IT’s IRANIAN COLLUSION WITH THE DEMOCRATS!!!!! And, finally, can we really say that President Biden didn’t know all the time and that he’s not also, secretly colluding with Iran?

    That’s the real news here. This was a hit job on John Kerry, and through John Kerry on President Biden and his administration, masquerading as a leaked oral history interview. That one, contextless, seemingly throw away sentence about John Kerry was the whole point. A perfectly executed black PSYOP. And everyone in Republican politics, the conservative movement, and conservative news, digital, and social media is going to hammer it until they can’t get any further use for it.

    If any of the other “scandals” didn’t get any traction, why would this one? (I realize you didn’t necessarily say it would)

  17. 17.

    Archon

    The idea that Iran wouldn’t know about Israeli covert operations in Syria is absurd.

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    @germy: Omar’s still there.  Gaetz is riding a skateboard downhill through a banana processing plant…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    VeniceRiley

    This so they can flog demands for a bogus Bengazi style investigation and hearings. Only they’re not in charge. So they’ll spank this into a conspiracy frenzy until Nov 5 2022, trying to take the House back. How tiresome.

  22. 22.

    J R in WV

    Well, the RWNJs already KNOW that Secretary/Senator Kerry was a communist since his Vietnam days, because he threw his medals over the fence onto the White House grounds. No soldier is allowed to be anti-war today, so unlike WW II from which so many men came home against all wars.

    I was pretty disgusted by the RWNJs who wore special bandaids at their convention to dismiss John Kerry’s purple hearts and other medals for heroic conduct in hand to hand battle conditions. Despicable acts by despicable and un-American people, the Republikan party. So this is nothing new of different, just more slanderous fiction to attack a great American.

    Elise Stefanik is especially vile, along with Spicer. Pigs in a wallow, every one of them.

  23. 23.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    One thing I am curious about is why Putin is so against a new JCPOA when he willingly signed onto the original in 2015?

  24. 24.

    JML

    @zhena gogolia: sigh. people have not forgotten that story in MN or a lot of the other Ilhan Omar stuff, and she’s still consistently being dragged out as the scary muslim immigrant black woman who will destroy all the ncie white people here.

    As a liberal democrat, it’s super frustrating to be defending someone with sloppy ethics, a major case of narcissism, and poor media control because the majority of her attackers are the most vile bigoted scum on the planet.

  25. 25.

    Hoodie

    From the context, it’s pretty clear to me that Zarif meant that Kerry was telling him something the Quds Force already knew (duh, they were the ones being attacked), using it as an example of how much Zarif was out of the loop on the Iranian side, like the prior example of the missile attack that he didn’t know about until the Americans told him.  This was an incredibly poorly written passage by a reporter who is either a dumb shit, has an axe to grind, or both. FTFNYT, always paying homage to Judith Miller.

  27. 27.

    Baud

    @Another Scott:

    Things always go badly if we panic and start beating up on our team.  It’s good to wait – our people generally know what they’re doing, and we cannot prevent the other side from making stuff up…

    Words to live by.

  28. 28.

    cain

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​

    One thing I am curious about is why Putin is so against a new JCPOA when he willingly signed onto the original in 2015?

     

    Adam mentioned it in the previous thread – it’s because Russia can raise the price of oil if Iran can no longer export its oil and so can make a lot of money. That’s what happened with TFG was in charge and blew up the Iran deal.

  29. 29.

    JMG

    Adam, your analysis is illuminating as always, but I question what legs this story has outside the usual suspects infobubble. I’d be kind of surprised if a significant number of Americans didn’t react with “John Kerry? Wow, he’s still alive.”

  30. 30.

    cain

    I think this is once again something that might fly around a lot on twitter but most normal people aren’t going to really get it that much.

  31. 31.

    piratedan

    and the unspoken part is how Russia is using the New York Times to legitimize their psyops against the current administration and ZERO of the usual suspects notice.

  32. 32.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Trying to remember why American diplomatic officials are required to keep Israeli operations against a regional power (operations that destabilize the region) secret, and am drawing blanks.

  33. 33.

    neldob

    yes, thanks Adam. I also appreciated the Israeli Neo-Fascist Wilding article. I saw several articles from the AP talking about how Palestinians are shooting rockets at Israel and rioting a couple of days later, with no context (of course).

  35. 35.

    Hoodie

    @cain: This makes me wonder if the leak was was actually intended to undermine the Russians and the Quds Force, because it does support a narrative that there is a part of the Iranian government that wants the JCPOA and it’s being sabotaged to further Russian interests and the parochial interests of the Iranian military in obtaining more weapons, not the interests of Iranians as a whole.   The fact that the American right has tried to spin this as some type of security breach by Kerry doesn’t mean that was what was intended by the leak.  The oil embargo has been crippling to most Iranians, this could add to discontent with the power of the military in Iran.  Most Americans will go “huh?” when they hear this, and they don’t really give a shit about Israel’s secrets.  As someone said, it’s laughable that the Iranians would not know who was attacking them in their own back yard.

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LeftCoastYankee: Republicans and conservatives have been banging the “Kerry was talking to the Iranians after he stopped being Secretary of State” drum since 2017.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Putin needs to keep Iran isolated. He needs to keep Iranian liquified natural gas (LNG) off the market, especially the EU market, so he can continue to dominate that market in Europe and Central Asia. Keeping Iran out of the JCPOA – original recipe of extra crispy – keeps them sanctioned and isolated. It keeps their LNG off the market. And it makes them dependent on his aid.

  41. 41.

    Spanky

    @JMG:

    Adam, your analysis is illuminating as always, but I question what legs this story has outside the usual suspects infobubble. I’d be kind of surprised if a significant number of Americans didn’t react with “John Kerry? Wow, he’s still alive.”

    I just looked on CNN. No sign of John Kerry, but Ronnie Wood is cancer-free for the 2nd time! And the WaPo article on the leak doesn’t mention Kerry.

  44. 44.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    That Republicans don’t believe that Iran will meet its treaty obligations (or at least say they don’t) yet quote the Iranian foreign minister about a former Democratic Secretary of State without the slightest bit of skepticism tells you all you need to know about Republicans. They hate us. But they’ll never get rid of us because the hate is oh so useful.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Geoduck: No, I’m not stating it – explicitly or implicitly – in this post. I’m not even thinking it, or wasn’t, until you suggested it. I offered absolutely no advice on how to counter what I’m describing. The sole purpose of the post was to describe the actual operation.

  48. 48.

    Adam L Silverman

    @cain: Whatever it is, he’ll say it on Fox News’s primetime Hour of Glower White Power Glower Power Hour with Tucker Carlson. Brought to you by MyPillow and the MyPillow CEO’s cocaine dealer.

  49. 49.

    Adam L Silverman

    I’m gonna go eat a quick bite. Back in a bit. Try not to tell anything you could learn by just reading the newspaper to the Iranian foreign minister while I’m gone.

  52. 52.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    So, this manufactuversy is already falling apart? LOL!

    @Adam L Silverman:

    @cain:

    Thanks! So, basically, Putin was on board with the deal in 2015 before he realized he could jack up oil prices if Iran remained isolated and lead them by the nose? And/Or was it an act back then to sign on to the JCPOA?

  53. 53.

    Kay

    @germy:

    So what does John Kerry do?

    They hate John Kerry. Every couple of years they have to attack him. It’s the oddest thing.
    I think it’s punishment for being a productive, normal, not-malicious person after losing a presidential election, see; Al Gore, who they also hate.

  54. 54.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    What? You interrupted my NFL draft preparation for this? San Francisco is now on the clock!

  55. 55.

    dmsilev

    @Cheryl Rofer: George Bush’s professional liar, who can be distinguished from T****’s professional liars only by the fact that he was a bit better at concealing the lies, has credibility? On anything?

  56. 56.

    Roger Moore

    @germy: ​
     

    So what does John Kerry do?

    Does he address this and say the story is bullshit?

    Will he be given an opportunity to address it before it gets blown up even more. It’s interesting, because a reputable news organization will usual contact people for a chance to comment before releasing something like this. Publishing a story that includes Kerry doing this without contacting him is a serious break with standard journalistic practice.

  58. 58.

    BruceFromOhio

    Russians all the way. If they didn’t directly leak it, they caused it to leak.

    The real purpose of the leak was to get that one, contextless sentence about John Kerry into the reporting. It sticks out like a sore thumb visible from space because it is supposed to stick out like a sore thumb visible from space!

    The only thing that would make this more Russian is if it was immersed in vodka, wrapped in a hammer and sickle, and sent to the International Space Station on a Soyuz flight.​

    ETA: This also indicates to anyone breathing that the method and resources used for the Hunter Biden op are all still in place, and just as effective. The next 72-96 hours of Fox-ist Reporting will be consumed with this one sentence. Ol’e Vlad and his flying monkees got this bitch down.​

    EETA: @Cheryl Rofer: ​ QED.

  59. 59.

    Claudia St George Hamburger

    @germy: 
    Are your local news stations run solely by natsec types? My local NBC affiliate’s webpage doesn’t have this, and it’s not on (or not very easily visible) on CNN or nbcnews.com. Quite frankly it’s way too inside baseball and seems a very odd way to hit Biden.

  60. 60.

    Barbara

    Maybe New York can figure out how to redistrict in a way that leaves Elise Stefanik vying with some other Republican for a congressional seat. As far as I can tell, she is as much of a Russian stooge as TFG, even if only of the useful idiot kind. Ditto for California, to redistrict Devin Nunes right out of a seat.

  61. 61.

    Brachiator

    New York Times ‘buried’ bombshell that John Kerry told Iran about Israeli covert operations in Syria

    How “covert” are these operations, really? I assumed that stuff was going on. I think I have read news stories. This stuff is “covert” only to the willfully stupid.

    I also give Israel credit for using cyber attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities. I recall some “military expert” who has a weekend show on Los Angeles area radio station KFI (the largest English language drive time market in California) predicting that Israel was going to massively bomb Iran after the November 2020 election.

    I don’t understand why Putin thinks it so necessary to smear John Kerry. I also don’t understand why the GOP so foolishly plays into Putin’s hands.

  64. 64.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    I also don’t understand why the GOP so foolishly plays into Putin’s hands.

    Probably because it’s what they want to believe and they see it as a way to hurt the Biden administration. IOW, a path back to power

  65. 65.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Brachiator: ​
     

    I also don’t understand why the GOP so foolishly plays into Putin’s hands.

    Because the GQP wants, so very badly, to have those hands all over them. What was once fetish is now fever, a sickening blinding illness.

  67. 67.

    Another Scott

    I’m half-listening to a replay of Psaki’s briefing. I haven’t heard a question about this yet. It’s been mostly been about COVID (and India) and taxes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  68. 68.

    cain

    @Adam L Silverman: ​
     
    It’s really like ADHD, things just change so rapidly – nothing is sustaining.. one moment Iran and Russia are best of buds and now Russia is working against them. Why they are – makes perfect sense and I think Iran would do the same if the situation was reversed.

  69. 69.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Laura Rozen tends to be elliptical in her tweets of press calls with administration officials. I’ll expand a little (could be wrong, but I know her pretty well).

    The first tweet is self-explanatory. The second is expanding on why Price is saying they don’t think it’s Russia that leaked the Zarif tape. Basically, we think that Russia is in favor of the JCPOA, as they were in 2015, so it’s doubtful they would be the leakers.

  71. 71.

    cain

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Fuck me TFG lies dairly and even hourly – Ari is some kind of fool. There are in no position to say jack shit after who they elected. Thinking that this is now politics as usual – fuck around and find out territory.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Sasha: That whole thing is just weird. Especially given the company that was contracted to do the work. Small, no previous Federal contracts, out of Plantation, FL. I’m curious if anyone can wind it back to see who the Ultimate Beneficial Owner of the company is.

  76. 76.

    Another Scott

    Question about the NYTimes story…

    Psaki – “We’re not going to comment on leaked tapes.”

    Perfect.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  77. 77.

    BruceFromOhio

    @piratedan:

    and the unspoken part is how Russia is using the New York Times to legitimize their psyops against the current administration and ZERO of the usual suspects notice.

    Well, not exactly zero. =)

  84. 84.

    bluehill

    @Elizabelle: CA has a redistricting commission that is supposed to be non-partisan, but this is apparently the first time CA has lost seats. Should be interesting because if you believe the headlines it seems population has been declining more in the SF and LA areas.

  86. 86.

    JMG

    California has an independent redistricting panel, I believe. New York, on the other hand, has full Democratic control, as does Illinois. As for Texas and Florida, it’s harder, not impossible but harder, to gerrymander added seats because they have to mirror where the population is growing within the state to a pretty large degree. If those areas are trending Democratic, which they are in Texas, don’t know about Florida, then if you break them up the GOP risks diluting its existing gerrymander.

  87. 87.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I also don’t understand why the GOP so foolishly plays into Putin’s hands.

    Probably because it’s what they want to believe and they see it as a way to hurt the Biden administration. IOW, a path back to power

    Republicans are insande. This won’t just hurt the Biden administration. It will hurt America.

    But then again these are the fools who cry about China while hatching secret deals with Russia. Bunch of traitors.

  88. 88.

    Bill Arnold

    The lack of a transcript makes the NYTimes piece an influence operation, and agreed, that out-of-context sentence about Kerry, paraphrasing some element of the transcript without even a time/date context, stands out as on obvious attack on Kerry; wish I’d read the piece before Adam posted this. :-)
    It’s also possible that the Kerry quote bit was an internal NYTimes move, though a motive re Kerry isn’t obvious. (If a NYTimes move, is it (irrational) JCPOA hate, or an attempt to attack Biden, or what?)
    Ugh. (I have some respect for Zarif, who has been in a difficult position the last 7+ years. He must have known that the audio might be leaked, so I can’t also can’t entirely discount the possibility that he was doing a (non-deterministic) break-things/stir-stuff-up play.)

  90. 90.

    Another Scott

    @JMG: The delay in getting the Census results out to Virginia means that the elections this fall will be affected. BlueVirginia (from January):

    * “Either last week a week before last, the attorney representing the United States Census Bureau said in court that the state level data – that’s the data they call the apportionment data, which is the data they use to decide how many congressional districts are allocated to each state – will not be ready until at least March 9th. That data normally arrives on December 31 by statute or before. And so that data is now delayed 68 days.”

    * “The data that they provide to Virginia to to do our redistricting is normally provided on an expedited basis, but they can’t get to that data until they first figure out how many people we have in Virginia overall. So given that the state-level data is delayed 68 days, normally the data we use to draw comes in like mid-February. If that’s delayed 68 days, that means we’re not going to have the data to draw districts until mid-April…They needed the data by April 1st in order to be able to get districts drawn in time to have a primary in August for the House of Delegates.”

    * “So it’s becoming…pretty clear…the House of Delegates are probably not running in new districts this year. And typically when that happens, the courts typically order another set of elections in order to remediate what is basically an unconstitutional situation (because you have people that are being unconstitutionally represented because it’s not one-man/one-vote or whatever). And so they might be running like three years in a row — they might be running…this year in the old districts, next year in the new districts, the year after that in the new districts.”

    * “So that’s kind of what it’s looking like right now; we’re probably gonna have June primaries for the statewide offices and the House of Delegates, and then the House of Delegates has to run with the congressional officials next year. That’s where I think it’s probably headed.”

    * Sen. Ebbin added, “I think it’s a pretty good prediction.“

    Only a handful of states have elections this year, but the mess might continue and affect the 2022 elections, especially if there are legal challenges, etc. We can’t let our guard down – we have to fight for every seat.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  91. 91.

    Brachiator

    @bluehill:

    Should be interesting because if you believe the headlines it seems population has been declining more in the SF and LA areas.

    You hear a lot of stuff about California becoming “too liberal” for some people or that taxes are driving the upper income people away.

    But it is more that living costs and stagnant wages are forcing middle class and lower income people out of SF and LA and other areas.

  92. 92.

    JMG

    California added two million people since the 2010 census. It’s losing a seat because it didn’t grow as much as Texas or Florida.

  94. 94.

    Captain C

    @Adam L Silverman: Which also means that the Quds Force and their allies benefit (that is, increase their share of power and income) from having Iranian LNG off the market and having Iran dependent on Russia.

  96. 96.

    Barbara

    @JMG: In other words, Congress really needs to expand to stop making the House less and less representative, like the Senate.

  97. 97.

    JML

    Republicans are breathing a sigh of relief in MN; if we’d lost a seat there’s basically no way to redistrict without putting 2 GOP incumbents against each other without combining Mpls & StP into a single district, which no democrat would allow (and unlikely to pass muster from MN judges who would see it for what it is: a blatant attempt at “packing”). As it is, it’s still going to be interesting because the constant heat loss in the rural parts of the state against the metro is going to force Emmer’s district further south & east (aka, where there are more democrats) and the twerp might get a real race again.

  99. 99.

    Bill Arnold

    More from the twitter feed of the reporter on that NYTimes piece. (Note: she retweeted Daily Caller.) Not all of these are in the NYTimes piece.

    Zarif on what John Kerry told him: Israel attacked Iran posts 200 times in Syria.Iran Air airline flying six flights a week to Syria.The two coordinated ceasefire in Yemen.They discussed Saudi Arabia.Kerry called his cell often.https://t.co/xmbXE95lD6— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) April 26, 2021

  102. 102.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I read this and all I can say is that after the experience that TFG and his white nationalist party has put us through, I don’t give a flying fuck about this.

    I’m writing my congresscritters (Wyden/DeFazio) to tell them the same.

  104. 104.

    Bill Arnold

    @rp:

    That is really weird. And her tweet is cryptic.

    In that tweet, she was just dumping everything (or everything that might be provocative domestically in the US) on the tape that involved Kerry. She’s showing that she has the audio and/or a transcript, and perhaps has a right-wing agenda involving damage to the Biden administration.
    She should be considering what would happen to her professional reputation if a transcript were released. She appears to be cherry-picking, though without a transcript it can’t be proven.

  105. 105.

    RaflW

    @JMG: I first became aware of this teapot boiling because Ari Fleischer stopped fondling Tr*mp’s mushroom long enough to tweet an “if this is true, we should be outraged” tweet (meaning he suspects the reporting is iffy). My initial reaction was “Wait, what is Kerry’s role in the Biden W.H.?”

    And I’m not someone who pays zero attention to climate news.

  106. 106.

    Cheryl Rofer

    This tweet is from the middle of a thread, which has a number of views from Russia. For the record, I think that the leak of the Zarif interview has more to do with internal Iranian politics than anything else. If there’s a smear against an American in it, that’s fine with some folks, but it’s a subsidiary point.

  109. 109.

    RaflW

    Kerry has now flatly denied that it ever happened.

    John Kerry @JohnKerry
    I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false. This never happened – either when I was Secretary of State or since.
    6:20 PM · Apr 26, 2021

  110. 110.

    Chris T.

    My take: “Gasp! Did you hear? John Kerry told the Iranians that Israel heard of a place called Syria!”

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