Do any of you remember seeing or hearing anything mentioned about an international security agreement negotiated yesterday in Helsinki?
Russian MoD says it's "ready to activate contacts with US colleagues via general staffs and other existing communication channels to discuss extending Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, cooperation in Syria, other current issues of ensuring military security."
— Lucian Kim (@Lucian_Kim) July 17, 2018
Yeah, me neither! Also, Congress neither!
The American people deserve to know what in the world our President just agreed to do. And the Congress must demand hearings. https://t.co/p3NbL6lUSn
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) July 17, 2018
As I wrote yesterday morning, one of the major concerns for yesterday’s summit was the President attempting the grand bargain that was put together by the Israelis, the Saudis, and the Emiratis – after consulting with Putin – that they think will get Iran out of Syria and contained within its own borders. It wouldn’t and that bargain would be an international security disaster. This Russian MOD announcement demonstrates the problem that everyone was focusing on in the run up to yesterday’s meetings in Helsinki; because the President had an initial one on one meeting with Putin without any notetakers or advisors present, there is no official US record of what was discussed or what was agreed to. I don’t think anyone who is not a firm supporter of the President is naive enough to believe that Putin didn’t record the meeting. So the Russians are now free to either release bits of those recordings or to make whatever statements they want and there is no official US record of the meeting that can be used to contradict them or push back on them. And, as was the case with the Singapore summit, the President doesn’t seem to understand that the technical terms that get used at these types of meetings not only are interpreted differently by others, so it is important to get them specifically defined in order to avoid having him and/or his advisors and aides stating X was agreed to and having the other side state, using the same language and terminology, that Y was agreed to. And X and Y are diametrically opposed to each other.
Stay secure.
Open thread!
germy
TriassicSands
It’s impossible to convey just how secure I feel with the Treasonous Toddler Tyrant in the White House.
PJ
In other news, Putin announced that he expected the withdrawal of NATO forces from the Baltics would be an orderly process. /s (I know it’s a cliche now, but how do we tell jokes from reality these days?)
JGabriel
Lucian Kim via Adam Silverman @ Top:
I guess we now know what that 2 pm meeting Trump scheduled with some MoC’s will be about.
jimmiraybob
I believe that it was alluded to in the press conference.
HeleninEire
It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking terrifying.
JGabriel
@PJ:
At this point, would anyone be surprised if that actually happened?
The Moar You Know
My response on reading this in this order:
1. Oh fuck, what has that orange shitsicle done now?
2. Yeah, he probably signed something insane without reading it, like a building lease or an “international security agreement”
The Moar You Know
@JGabriel: No. Frankly, I hope that the British and French nuclear weapons programs have been reactivated with all possible speed. Europe needs to arm up, and not “a few years in the future” but right the fuck now.
LAO
This doesn’t seem good:
Davis X. Machina
All your base are belong to us.
MattF
So, what the fuckety-fuck is this about? I’d like to know.
Amir Khalid
What is the legal status of an agreement that POTUS makes in secret, outside the knowledge of even his closest advisors? Can he make it stick on his presidential authority alone?
Teddys Person
@LAO: Oh no, has the Tuesday Afternoon Massacre begun? Just because I don’t live in Russia and my free speech still applies, FUCK TRUMP.
edit for typo
p.a.
@LAO:
My take: He’s firing Mueller.
ETA: or taking whatever exec actions amount to terminating/castrating the investigation(s)
ChrisS
@Amir Khalid: No, still needs congressional approval. Majority only, though, so his 2pm meeting is probably to explain what Mitch and Paul are going to vote for.
Teddys Person
@LAO: Just saw this:
LAO
@Teddys Person: I hope so because the orange moron can’t been in a good mood today.
hells littlest angel
I expect the agreement allows Russia to annex the Sudetenland, possibly in exchange for taking over the building of our Space Force!
Platonailedit
The Russians are clearly showing who is the boss of us of a.
LAO
@hells littlest angel: I’m going to be sorry to see Alaska leave the our great Union, but on the flip side, we’ll now have the room to welcome Puerto Rico as the 50th State.
Baud
#RussianOccupation
p.a.
Russia gets Baltic republics, share of Alaska mineral rights, end of enviro regulations there. ‘We’ get building permit in Moscow, some hockey players.
hells littlest angel
@LAO: Yeah, but the logistics of kicking out all the Puerto Ricans to make room for the displaced white Alaskans will present a real challenge … oh, who am I kidding, ICE will just deport them into rubber rafts probably.
LAO
The Midnight Lurker
@MattF: The President of the United States is openly conspiring to hand our mid-term elections over to Putin. Check out Kathleen Rice grilling the DHS heads with regard to safeguarding our elections. Two of them would not even admit there had been Russian meddeling, and the other two were reluctant to do so. We’re under attack, Bro. And we’re loosing. Wake up.
NotMax
So much winning.
NOT.
LAO
Wow: would this even be necessary if Trump were an honest report of facts:
opiejeanne
Does that sound ominous in a sleeper cell sort of way. or is it just me?
Miss Bianca
At this point, I am just about out of what-the-fucks to give.
Adam L Silverman
@JGabriel: Nope:
Teddys Person
Scrambling sycophants gonna sycophant
jimmiraybob
@Amir Khalid:
And, what is the likelihood of Pence being compromised enough to honor a legal agreement if something happened to trump (25th Amendment, resignation, Impeachment)? Ryan? Republican-led US House? Republican-led US Senate? There’s really no time to be re-vetting all he Rs for Russian affiliations.
At this point, I’d only trust an Obama or a Hillary to lead the country in the sense of governing for the sake of the nation. Maybe others, but Barrack and Hillary both have track records at the top. There is a reason that Putin did not like O and didn’t want H. He feared that they’d stand up for America, western cohesion, and NATO.
PAM Dirac
@p.a.: And a slightly used soccer ball.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is a bit amusing as some sideshow theatre
Holmes was McConnell’s flack, I guess I missed McConnell critiquing Abu Grahib and the Iraq War. Feehery used to be one of Tweety’s favorite guests, maybe still is. Tweety is one of the rare things my trump-era media addiction has resisted, him and the odious Chuck Todd
Teddys Person
@Adam L Silverman: JFC, the strategy is to distract us by giving away shit tons of taxpayer dollars to the rich donor class. I guess it’s now smash and grab until the popo show up.
edit typo
germy
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: If the President was still in the residence, then Rosenstein didn’t meet with him. He most likely met with Emmet Flood, who is the attorney on the White House Counsel’s staff assigned to handle this stuff.
eric
@germy: Unpossible; Pete King has never seen intelligence.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: According to Senator Cotton and the rest of the GOP, any agreement a president and/or people working in his administration negotiate that is not ratified by the US Senate is non binding.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Teddys Person:
That’s the understatement of the century. The problem, Killme, is that Trump doesn’t think he did anything wrong so there’s nothing to salvage or correct.
hueyplong
Say what you will about 1940 France, they at least required a month of battlefield casualties before surrendering to an aggressor.
Clearly, I have been insufficiently cynical these last 20 months.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
Wonder what bullshit argument they would make to get around that?
Calouste
@Teddys Person: 1) OfPutin doesn’t go back on his words.
2) OfPutin never has said anything against his owner. Not going to happen now.
Surrogates will try to spin it, but OfPutin himself won’t change what he said.
Yarrow
Has everyone called their Representative and Senators to tell them it’s time to DO SOMETHING about the traitor in the White House? We need to increase the pressure. Make your voice heard. Let them know we are watching what they do and, in the case of all Reps and some Senators, elections are just a few months away.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@germy:
Wow.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: Profiles in courage, that lot. McConnell still hasn’t made a statement about yesterday’s fun (n)yet.
HeleninEire
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, hell that’s good.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: If only he were in a position of power where he could do something about it.
germy
The Midnight Lurker
@Adam L Silverman: (n)yet. You crack me up, boss.
Immanentize
@Baud:
Whatever happened to the Wolverines?
J R in WV
Holy fuckin shit !!!!!
:-(
Friend told me today that he had just seen a 1980 interview with Trump, combined with a reasonably current statement by Trump. To him it proved something is bad wrong with Trump’s mental capacity. Me too.
Not that this matters one tiny bit as long as the Treason Republicans continue to back the Traitor Idiot Trump.
germy
@Gin & Tonic: He’s in too deep, as they say.
LAO
JFC: this should be something else.
@Adam L Silverman: Wanna bet the Republicans bat all of their eyelashes at him while he makes his remarks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@LAO: add that person to the list of witnesses Chairman Schiff needs to call on Jan 2.
And to think, not only is he not the dumbest MoC (I give that to Goehmert, with Jordan as just one top competitor), he’s arguably not even the dumbest MoC named King.
The Midnight Lurker
@jimmiraybob: Newsflash: Mike Pence is COMPLETELY compromised.
Gravenstone
@LAO: I’ll gladly trade the land of the Palins for the land of the Molinas (and Javy Baez and Francisco Lindor …).
Miss Bianca
@Calouste: Mostly just because I think it scans better, plus is a more accurate rendition of the title as put forth by Margaret Atwood, I find that I prefer “OfVlad” as the (dis)honorific.
germy
@Adam L Silverman: He’s too busy being happy about this:
Frankensteinbeck
It seems to me that an agreement that exists only in Trump’s memory is going to be mighty hard to enact. He is, uh, not a details man.
Teddys Person
Here are all the people who were convicted of treason in the US — and the ones who were executed for it
JGabriel
Julia Ioffe on Twitter:
Looks like Trump’s line about the press focusing on the past is, in fact, the Kremlin’s propaganda line.
Color me unsurprised.
Barbara
So is Russia announcing that henceforth it will be dictating U.S. international policy in Syria and elsewhere?
@LAO: I would be only too happy if “unreal” was a literally true adjective to describe the last 24 hours. Alas.
sherparick
@germy: I do find it strange that someone as legitimately outraged by U.S. human rights violations over the years, like Hersch and Greenwald, can completely overlooked the hundreds of thousands killed by an Assad or a Putin, so so long as they maintain an anti-American attituded.
Teddys Person
@The Midnight Lurker: This, let’s not forget it was Manafort who brought Pence on board.
maya
@germy: Lavrov not doing anything trumpski’s base wouldn’t wholeheartedly approve of. Not known as The Slovenian Stunner for nothing.
JGabriel
@Adam L Silverman: Mea culpa.
germy
Yarrow
@The Midnight Lurker:
Yep. Paul Manafort brought him into the campaign. Pence was head of the transition team. He’s a traitor.
Gravenstone
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: The problem is that he doesn’t believe Putin favored Trump, not that he doesn’t believe Putin’s denials about interfering in the election.
germy
@sherparick: It’s selective outrage.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it’s very important to good Christian coal miners that money is speech and some people have more than others and that’s because God wants it that way
Mr Peabody knows what’s best
Frankensteinbeck
@sherparick:
I don’t believe that this is Greenwald’s motivation, but there is a long tradition in the hardcore anti-war Left that assumes that everything that happens in the world is caused by America. Either we forced it to happen directly, or it’s in resistance to us and thus also our fault.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: okay, we have to be fair. Trump was a very successful gameshow host. It was pretty much the only thing he ever succeeded in that didn’t involve his father’s money and political cronies.
The Midnight Lurker
@Teddys Person: Thank you for posting this. It’s important.
different-church-lady
@LAO:
TRUMP: I mean, it was a great victory. A great victory. The biggest!
PUTIN: Yes.
TRUMP: Did you see those crowds? At the inauguration? Bigger than Obama’s. Bigger than anybody’s.
PUTIN: Da.
TRUMP: Do you get crowds, Vlad? I mean, I get crowds. You should see my crowds. Boy, there’s a lot of people there, and they love me.
PUTIN: [purses lips]
(continues for 15 pages)
Yellowdog
Anyone in the DC area: There is a call out for people to gather at Lafayette Square (in front of the WH; aka the Kremlin annex) at 7 pm tonight. There was a spontaneous demonstration last night, with several hundred attendees. Check out #OccupyLafayetteSquare hashtag on Twitter and spread the word.
Davis X. Machina
@Frankensteinbeck: He’s our own Kaiser Wilhelm.
Treaty of Björkö
With the difference that thanks to Twitter, there’s a new Daily Telegraph interview every day.
germy
LAO
@different-church-lady: Well played.
Mike in NC
The knees on Fat Bastard’s baggy blue suit look pretty threadbare. Anybody wonder why?
tobie
@Yellowdog: Thanks for posting. I’ll see if I can make it.
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady:
—PAGE 37—
TRUMP: I mean, how is it Crooked Hillary isn’t in jail yet? She should be in jail!
PUTIN: [blank stare]
TRUMP [waving tiny hands]: You have jails here! You have the best jails. You know what to do with people who should be in jail.
PUTIN: [wry smile, slowly slides portfolio towards himself across table]
TRUMP: We’re gonna build jails. The best jails. And we’re going to jail Crooked Hillary.
PUTIN: [forges Trump’s signature on disarmament treaty] Da.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: No, because there would have been both an official note taker and his senior National Security staffer for Russia. That would be Fiona Hill. The note taker would take official notes to produce the official White House record for the National Archives and for the unclassified summary to be released. Hill would take her own notes as the subject matter expert.
As a senior advisor to senior military leaders I’ve done this dozens on dozens of times for everyone from lieutenant colonels to 3 and 4 star general officers/flag officers to other senior civil servants to Senior Executives.
rikyrah
@The Midnight Lurker:
1. MANAFORT’S CHOICE for VP
2.Chair of the transition
3. Up to his eyeballs in the Flynn mess.
Chyron HR
@sherparick:
Legitimately outraged? Says who?
TriassicSands
@Amir Khalid:
No longer a mere president, Trump currently enjoys the status of “Emperor” among Republicans. Trump, himself, might prefer the title of “Kaiser” or more likely “Der Führer.”
rikyrah
@Teddys Person:
sounds about right.
maya
@Mike in NC: It’s the only one he’s ever had. Suito-Billionaire Eccentric Sort of like Howard Hughes collected his own fingernail clippings. Besides, those baggy pants can hold a Super Slurpee sized Depends.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: IOKIYAR.
Teddys Person
@different-church-lady:
page 1,735
PUTIN: Now Donald, I have some things I’d like you to do…
TRUMP: Gulp
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: FWIW, here’s what I just sent to my CongressWeasel Scott Tipton (CO-3):
When are Republicans in Congress going to stop enabling a President who openly sides with a hostile foreign power against this country’s intelligence services, and who freely admits he invited the Russians to hack into American email accounts and interfere with the American electoral process? The fact that 12 officers of the GRU – the Russian military, in case I have to spell it out for you – were indicted the other day indicates that as far as the special prosecutor is concerned, these hacks and attacks constitute an act of war. Aiding and abetting the enemy during an act of war is treason, as set forth in the Constitution.
So, the question becomes: are you, as a member of Congress, going to aid and abet, by excusing, treason? Or are you going to do your patriotic duty and call for articles of impeachment against President Trump? My humble opinion, if you want to keep your seat in Congress, is that you opt for the latter option, rather than the former.
different-church-lady
@Teddys Person:
“…the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage…”
different-church-lady
@Teddys Person:
TRUMP: I can still use the safe word, right?
PUTIN: [snickers]
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
You.me.
exact same thoughts.
LOL
lollipopguild
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mr Peabody and his boy Sherman can use the WAYBACK machine and take the country back to 2015.
Teddys Person
@different-church-lady: [laughing w/tears emoji]
Teddys Person
Trump enablers haz a sad:
Yarrow
@rikyrah: LOL. Yep. And we saw it a long, long time ago. It’s maddening how long it has taken people to catch up. I mean like the media and various pundits. It’s been so obvious for so long that it has to be a willful desire not to see it.
Adam L Silverman
@The Midnight Lurker:
https://i.chzbgr.com/full/3895154176/h5B25E4E8/
Citizen Alan
@Immanentize:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we really need a remake of Red Dawn in which the plucky, salt of the earth, gun owning midwesterners are completely on the side of the Russian Invaders, and it’s up to the effete, latte drinking Coastal Elites to save America.
The Midnight Lurker
@Adam L Silverman: THAT just went out to EVERYBODY! Thanks.
JPL
@Yarrow: Maybe Flynn updated the Mueller team on Pence, and is involvement. hmmm
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@LAO:
To be a fly on the wall when the translator gets to the part of Putin moaning “rim me, Donald, and no holding back on the tongue like last time…”
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Since Trump is suppose to make a statement at two, make sure you are available to hold our hands.
J R in WV
Beyond upset, I seek aid from lolcats.com.
Bless the kittens!!! They are keeping me from blowing out a vein. Although my BP was OK at the Dr’s for my physical, so something is helping me keep centered in these crazed times.
Yarrow
@Citizen Alan: I’d totally watch that!
@JPL: Oh, yeah. He did.
Teddys Person
@J R in WV: Is this holy fucking shit, Trump was sane in 1980 and look how much he’s declined? OR holy fucking shit, Trump has always been bug-fuck insane?
J R in WV
@Frankensteinbeck:
It seems to me that an agreement that exists only in Trump’s
memoryimagination is going to be mighty hard to enact. He is, uh, not a details man.Fixed dat for ya.
prostratedragon
@Davis X. Machina: I guess that completes the answer to the “why Helsinki” question. (I’d figured that trolling Finland was part of it.)
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: I’ve just put up a live feed post.
Darkrose
@Gravenstone: And Kiké Hernandez! I’m a Giants fan, but he’s probably my favorite Dodger.
J R in WV
@Teddys Person:
Always insane, but also now demented!
mad citizen
I can get behind the idea that Pence is compromised, religious nut that he is, and what with the Manafort/Flynn connection. But I always read “head of the transition” as a reason. What is it in this role that plays into the treason? Installing certain people? Because in general I think Pence is dumb as a post, and the administration is totally incompetent in terms on running the Executive Branch.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: King hasn’t seen the intelligence. The only people that have seen the intelligence are the Congressional Gang of Eight. The Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate, the Speaker and Minority Leader of the House, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of each chambers intelligence committees with one exception. Apparently Nunes has been having Trey Gowdy review the intel for him. It is unclear why. Especially given the now withdrawn non-recusal recusal of Nunes.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: This has been McConnell’s game for a long time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/opinion/sunday/mitch-mcconnell-supreme-court-senate.html
Much more at the link by McConnell’s biographer.
Adam L Silverman
@JGabriel: No need to apologize. That was my initial assumption too and I went and looked it up before just putting it in the post.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in NC: He does it on purpose. He had a whole batch of suits made of lesser quality material with only so-so tailoring shortly after he started campaigning. Apparently the idea was it created a visual that would appeal to working class men who may have one or two suits at most, didn’t pay several thousand dollars for them, and most likely didn’t have them expertly tailored. If you look at his suits in pictures from the beginning of the campaign in June 2015 and compare them to the suits he started wearing by December of 2015, you can see the difference in the finish and fit of the material and tailoring. Whether he figured this out himself or someone advised him to do it, I don’t know.
Adam L Silverman
@Teddys Person: The vast majority of National Security Staffers are not direct hires, via presidential appointments, by the White House. Rather they are senior civil servants and Senior Executives (or equivalents) and senior military officers (colonel/captain through general officer/flag officer) on assignments from their home departments, bureaus, agencies, and the Services. So this could’ve been one of the appointees or it could have been one of the detailees.
Teddys Person
@Adam L Silverman: Man, you are full service with your fashion analysis and what not. s//
Teddys Person
@Adam L Silverman: I assumed that career civil service and/or military personnel would not run to the press.
Adam L Silverman
@Teddys Person: Depends how pissed off they are.
Adam L Silverman
@Teddys Person: I remember reading an article that mentioned it.
SFAW
@Teddys Person:
All that means is that they will furrow their brows ever-so-much-more deeply while they continue to enable Shitgibbon and his destruction of American democracy
Dev Null
@Yarrow: Lordy, Ah buhlieves!
er, as a matter of faith.
Believe me, I want Mueller to take down Pence at the same time he takes down Трамп. Pence is Трамп, without (most of) the baggage, even dumber, and a Dominionist and Dominionist facilitator. Republicans would regard him as a savior.
Nonetheless, other explanations are possible, e.g.:
1) Manafort brought Pence onto the ticket as outreach to evangelicals. (h/t Teddy’s Person in a comment at an earlier post.)
2) Manafort saw Christie Creme as potentially hostile to Russia, and potentially too independent to be reined in; which is to say: a threat to Manafort’s gravy train.
Evidence would really srsly be appreciated in this regard.
Dev Null
@rikyrah: You left out “meeting with Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church”, the Patriarch being regarded as close as thieves (or whatever) with the Russian Government.
This is all circumstantial evidence. I’m not even sure it’s evidence. The only peeps you’ll convince with this are peeps like me who already want to believe that Pence is a Russian tool.
I know that this not a popular view, but srsly, on the rare occasions I dare to make this argument to indies – people I’d like to persuade – they laugh at me.
The real problem with Mike Pence isn’t Russians (that we can demonstrate), it’s that he’s Mike Pence: a Dominionist, a bigot, a tool, and an idiot.
Unfortunately none of those characteristics will take him down. :-(
Dev Null
@different-church-lady: nice!
Dev Null
@Davis X. Machina: That’s some serious historical arcana!
I don’t have a link, but I remember seeing an essay, maybe at Foreign Policy or The Atlantic or even Digby comparing Трамп to Kaiser Wilhelm.
It didn’t end well for Germany, as best I recall. ~dryly~
BruceJ
@Amir Khalid: “If the President does it, it’s not illegal” is pretty much the entire manual for this Administration. Sadly, the GOP is going along with that idea this time. Remember Obama was a terrible tyrant because he issued some Executive orders, but Trump is our absolute monarch.