monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

If you haven't seen the video of Erdogan's security people kicking the crap out of protesters in Washington, watch it. Extremely brutal.
Here

For the record, Trump bragged, sure, but not about "committing sexual assault." He made it clear that these women "let him do it." That aint "assault."

EJ Dionne gets this right
WP

Very interesting indeed.

Why did a Russian pay $95M to buy Trump’s Palm Beach mansion?

Last week, Liz Cheney wrote a tweet along with a photo of the letter from Trump firing Comey. Her tweet read

She deleted the tweet Wed morning.

Pay attention to her. She's ambitious and she's as much of a sociopath as her father.

It's kind of sad, really. With a bit more efficiency, Trump could have got all this stuff we've seen over the last week or so done in his first 100 days.

Figures, sho nuff:



http://thehill.com/homenews/house/333958-pelosi-calls-for-independent-commission-after-special-counsel-appointment

So, there ya have it then, eh? Mueller aint "truly independent." Just another one of Putin's lapdogs, ya know?

Because he wanted to buy influence over a U.S. President, that's why!!

Oh, wait, that was 10 years ago.

Nevermind.

Turns out:



62,000 square feet, eh? I wonder if all mansions in Palm Beach are that big?

Some must be much bigger, I guess:

Good one.

Your characterization of his speech is preposterous.

It's a perfect way to make a payoff for something--agree on the on the market value of the property and then pay an extra 10 or 15 million as a rakeoff. with the variability of the real estate market, that would be really hard to prove. Given the corruption of the Russian oligarchs and the real estate corruption of Donald Trump years before he ran from president, and it's all to probable.

Naw, it aint perfect. It's all a matter of public record. The "perfect way" is the Obama way. Billions in CASH, delivered late at night in an obscure location, but even that can get exposed.

Here's my question. What was Trump being "paid off" for, exactly? What is this "something" you mention?

Just listened to Dennis Kucinich express his belief that America is under attack from within, by deep state actors in the intelligence community.

Apparently he has also been on Fox claiming these people are trying to destroy the Trump presidency

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/05/17/deep-state-government-destroying-donald-trump-kucinich-says-hannity

In the short remarks I heard him make he more or less acknowledged that Trump's presidency was under attack by deep state intelligence community factions, but the concern he expressed was broader (somehow I don't think Dennis has become a Trump fan) He made a point that I heard Steven Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University raise as well : During the Obama presidency, they assert, Obama was thwarted in his attempt to establish an anti-terrorism partnership with Russia in Syria by deep state factions in the intelligence community and the Pentagon who are rabidly anti-Russian. According to Kucinich and Cohen the factions, having decided that President Obama was making a terrible mistake, sabotaged the effort by staging an unauthorized attack against Syrian forces which resulted in Syrian deaths and a scuttling of the budding cooperation agreement.

Cohen gives no credibility to allegations of collusion between Russia and Trump and/or his campaign and argues that the only dangerous collusion going on is between the Democrats and the MSM in an effort to to deligitimize the Trump presidency through a "tsunami" of allegations that are based on cherry picking convenient facts and presenting them in a distorted context in order to suggest something sinister is happening and which can only be described as "neo-McCarthyism."

Apparently he has run afoul of such icons of the liberal media, the NYT and the Washington Post, by publicly disagreeing with them on the topic and claims they respond to disagreement with efforts to stigmatize anyone with an alternative view as "Russian sympathizers" or somehow profiting from shady dealings with Moscow. Finally he claims that he knows that "many" Ob-Ed pieces by Russian experts who consider the collusion charges to be nonsense have been submitted to the NYT, but all have been rejected for publication. (Sounds like one was probably written by him)

I've been listening to and reading Professor Cohen's opinions and assessments of Russia for a great many years now; stretching back to when he was referred to as a Soviet Expert. He was very frequently a guest on the MacNeil/Lehrer show on PBS. I haven't watched it in a few years so I don't know if he still appears.

Cohen never impressed me as a conservative or for that matter a liberal, but he is, in fact, married to Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation and Cohen himself is a contributing editor of the very progressive magazine. I believe his academic credentials are impeccable.

I agree with Cohen regarding the misleading presentation of facts regarding Trump. The Left really need to be brought to heel over this.

My feelings are mixed on Russia. On the one hand, it will be a catastrophe if Russia invades the Baltic states. It would likely lead to a nuclear war since NATO is bound to defend them. And I'm not sure that Putin understands that.

But on the other hand, Putin is only interested in conquering former-Soviet land, and only if that land has a large Russian population trapped in it (in Putin's view they are trapped at least).

Putin is not trying to conquer the entire world the way the Soviets were, and should not be counted as the same grave threat to world freedom that the Soviets were.

oralloy says of snood:
No, it's spot on. Here is a man who lied incessantly, cheated, blackened people's reputations falsely, and made promises he couldn't possibly keep, whi has shat on the majority of people who rejected his horsepucky and didn't vote for him who are also citizens of this country, in the majority and are getting stiffed by him. And he whines he hasn't ben treated fairly. No, he's gotten exactly whathe earned, which is scorn.

The slightly melodramatic term "deep state," apparently was originally coined to describe shadow governments in foreign nations so it is not the child or either the Left or the Right.

My understanding of it's current use or at least my definition of it, is factions of career bureaucratic employees within government institutions and agencies who attempt, through various means, to make, change or confound policy, regardless of whether they have any legal authority to do so and often through illegal means (most notably the leaking of classified information) If necessary they will work in association with political appointees within their organizations, and with external corporate interests. I suspect, as well, that if the opportunity presents itself and they feel there is a need, they will work in association with foreign interests too.

Never having met any of these folks and not given the opportunity to ask them questions, I can only imagine what would seem to make sense relative to motivation. If someone spends decades in a particular area of governmental service, that person is likely to accumulate a certain high level of technical expertise and experiential wisdom, or, at least, the conceit of having done so. It's not difficult to imagine such a person believing he or she is far more qualified to set policy within their sphere of expertise than political appointees or elected officials who very rarely have matching qualifications.

To what degree such deep state people operate within our institutions and agencies is not something I can quantify. I don't believe that they necessarily operate in great numbers or in all institutions or agencies, and I do not imagine that they are all united as a shadow government network conspiring to effectively seize control of the country.

I suspect that they are most prevalent in institutions and agencies in which policy decisions can have significant impacts on the nation and the world and even to the point of life and death: The intelligence agencies, and the State Department for example. Anywhere where one or more career technocrats can decide that policy in their sphere of expertise is far too important and consequential to trust to political appointees and elected officials whom they perceive to be at best novices. Obviously every expert thinks his or her area of expertise is quite significant and so I certainly don't rule out their operating in the Department of Transportation or the National Parks Service.

I don't believe their efforts are necessarily closely coordinated with each other's, nor that they represent an organization engaged in an effort to wrest control of the government and assume all power for themselves. Nothing so grandly sinister is, in my estimation, going on.

I believe that it is their desire, their intention and their goal is to influence policy, personnel and actions in ways far beyond the authority with which they have been invested and essentially from the shadows which is to say in ways which can't be directly linked to them (particularly if they are illegal).

This has been going on for centuries in empires and nations advanced and complex enough to require a professional class to conduct the day to day business of the government whether it be an elected body, a hereditary monarch or a strongman elevated through revolution. The deep state though is not that professional class; it's not a government's bureaucracy. It's factions operating within them and in some ways attempting to be the power behind the throne. Eunuchs operating in the shadows of a Chinese emperor's court were deep state operatives. Clerks supporting the general staff of the Roman or British empire's military have been.

As I began, the term has a somewhat dramatic flair, that can also connote something ominous like the "dark web," but in general the operations are more prosaic albeit no less dangerous to our democracy.

No matter how brilliant and experienced a member of the diplomatic corps may be, his or her authority is specifically limited and actions taken outside those limits, and certainly if they are illegal as well, are totally unacceptable, and so regardless of whether intentions are worthy or not, or if the deep state operative's fears or concerns are legitimate, our system cannot allow them to be a law unto themselves. Appointing Newt Gingrich's wife Callista to the post of Vatican Ambassador could be a horrible idea with real negative consequences for the US (it's not of course), but it's entirely unacceptable for that brilliant and experienced career employee of the State Department to use his office in some way to sabotage the appointment.

In our democracy the most consequential policy decisions are, primarily, the responsibility of elected officials so that there is a link of accountability between the decision maker and the citizenry. We know that this link is often tenuous and can be circumvented, but ultimately, in our democracy, it is effective. Richard Nixon's abuse of power and resignation in disgrace is the perfect example. Important, highly consequential policy decisions can't be made by faceless, unaccountable bureaucrats in a healthy functioning democracy.

A career employee of the CIA may believe Donald Trump is a disastrous president who will only get worse and likely endanger the nation, but he or she doesn't get to negate the decision of the American electorate by attempting to bring him down with a series of strategic leaks, regardless of whether or not they contain classified information. For good or bad Trump, not the deep state operative was elected to the presidency.

Thus far I've addressed why government employees can't be permitted to operate outside or their authority and in secrecy even if their judgment is ultimately sound; their intentions unassailable, but we should all acknowledge that this is an abstract context. The people who operate within the deep state are not all wise and benign mandarins who if only they were unstable enough to crave power would make a fabulous president. Many are motivated by conceit and petty resentments, and not half as expert as they like to think they are. These people are not brave resistance fighters heroically doing all they can to defeat a tyrant the people have foolishly elected, they are oath-breakers, and often criminals, and they are robbing you and I of our rights and endangering the nation.

If you think Chelsea Manning and Joseph Snowden are heroes you're probably big fans of those who operate in the deep state environment.

If you believe Trump is actually on the verge of depriving us all of our constitutional rights then you're probably someone who thinks the transgressions and crimes committed in the deep state are not only acceptable and necessary but to be lauded.

You should note though that if Dennis Kusinich and Steven Cohen are correct about President Obama's experience with the deep state then you should realize that this activities are not limited only to Trump and Republican presidents. These people can't be relied upon to only break their oaths or commit crimes when it is in service of a goal with which you agree. The can't be controlled which is why they are so dangerous. They can only be stopped and purged from the government which they are corrupting.

Yes, it is a perfect way to do it, since the value of a real estate transaction is esentialy whatever people decide to pay for it, so even if it is a ublic record that's irrelevant, because people paid it so even if it's wel above market, you can't show it's anything but legit.
And I'm, channeling Trump here. Time after time during the campaign he'd say something bout his opponenets that was scurrilous and demonstrably false. He'd say it in a form like "people are saying {bogus whopper]" and when called on it he would claim he was just reporting what other people said, that he hadn't said it, other people had. I'm not saying Trump or his associates were giving and taking bribes and payofs, I'm just saying it's a perfect way to hide that someone could do it. Thanks, Donald, for the lessons in doubletalk.

on a completely diferent note, on which you are on much sounder ground, I agre abou'" :farscape". I just finished the last dvd of their last season, and "cliffhanger" as yu've described it inded. I got it from my local library consortium and the librarian who was trying to find it read me decriptions of the listings in the lcolections, ad the one for the Peacekepers War started something olike, With war in the offing, they reassemble John Crichton", her eyes got big and she said ops as she realized she'd just given me the mother of al spoilers, so al thru it I was expecting some gory dismemberment of Crichtonm tho knowig that in the farscape universe death is often onoy provisional not terminal, I wasn't al that worried. Was a pretty spectacular dismemberment. I do have the sequel, and start that tomorrow night. I asume you know that Browder and Black joined the cast of Stargate SG1 for the last couple seasons, and they had several sly references to farscape in them. Browder wasn't that memorable I thought, but Black played SF's probably greatest ditzy heroine in Vala Mal Doran.