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I have Joel Send a noteboard - 03/02/2018 05:09:19 AM

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Hanlon’s Razor. Ever heard of it?

First and foremost, positing that the president and Congress are simply too INEPT to defend against highly effective Russian attacks on democracy itself (and hardly in the US alone) is no more reassuring than believing them complicit. It is the same old Trump conundrum:

Is he disqualified to serve the nation because a traitor, or "merely" because incompetent? The question badly misses the existential point.

That aside, it defies plausibility (and Occams more famous razor) to believe a US general staff officer intimately involved in the Cold War most of his life would believe it ethical or even acceptable, much less patriotic, to repeatedly call the Russian Ambassador while working on a presidential campaign with an offer to drop US sanctions imposed precisely because Russia was violently and subversively trying to put the Warsaw Pact band back together. Though I concede it was staggeringly stupid such an individual never once considered US intelligence agencies might be tapping the Russian Ambassadors phone (especially since it is said to be "an open secret in Washington" that the "Russian Ambassador to the US" is really just Russias chief SPYMASTER in the US.)

Kushner contacting the Russian government to establish secret "back channel" communications without the CIAs knowledge is equally hard to attribute to what would have to be a drooling idiot level of incompetence.

Or the current AG repeatedly meeting with the Russian Ambassador at the Convention that nominated Trump, yet testifying to Congress that he NEVER did so, then "amending" his statements to retroactively recall each meeting, but only each time one of them was "recalled for him." I mean, sure, he meets lots of people, especially during a campaign, so maybe I could believe he initially forgot meeting the ambassador at all, or even a second meeting—but after the SECOND time Congress pointed out that, yeah, you actually did meet him in this place on this date, I must believe he would have been racking his brain and documentary records to remind himself of any and all other meetings he might have forgotten. I certainly would if I had been foolish enough to hang out with foreign ambassadors while I was a senior member of a presidential campaign, and I neither graduated from the US Military Academy nor hold a Juris Doctor degree, like Sessions.'

I actually CAN believe Trump Jr. was stupid enough to believe it was not only acceptable to get dirt on Hillary directly from a hostile Russian government, but not unwise to document it with exultant emails. However, I am also familiar with the phrase "ignorance of the law is no excuse" (and am certain Attorney General Sessions is.)

Then there is Manafort: Replacing "Donald Trump" with "Viktor Yanukovych" and "Hillary Clinton" with "Yulia Tymoshenko" makes the campaign Manafort ran for Putin in 2016 indistinguishable from that he ran for Putin in 2010. The sole practical difference is that the US did not live under Soviet domination for centuries, so shouting, "Lock her up, lock her up, lock her up...!" at campaign rallies imprisoned only Tymoshenko.

Are you familiar with the phrase "Pattern of behavior"? Kind of important in obstruction of justice investigations. So far the main difference between Trumps and the one that brought down his mentors mentor Nixon is that, while the Plumbers DID steal documents from the DNC to rig an election, they were working directly for CREEP, not the KGB—oh, sorry, "the FSB," because the Soviet spy agency that recruited Putin is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the one he ran before "elected" to run all of Russia in what KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko claimed was an "FSB" coup (though he ceased claiming that soon after the polonium poisoning that killed him in London.)

This is WAY bigger than Dems vs. Republicans: We and the EU remain "the last best hope for democracy," because if we go down thanks to Trump, Le Pen and Brexit our "choices" and that of everyone else on Earth will be reduced to Putins police state, the PLAs police state or some fundamentalist mullahs police state.

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This message last edited by Joel on 03/02/2018 at 05:10:15 AM
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So that memo was released.... - 02/02/2018 06:59:35 PM 1107 Views
"God's in His heaven— All's right with the world!" - 02/02/2018 07:14:41 PM 642 Views
Just reading the memo is indeed the best approach, I just did too. - 02/02/2018 08:20:01 PM 671 Views
I find it hard to believe the Obama appointees in the DoJ did not know where the dossier came from *NM* - 02/02/2018 09:17:06 PM 324 Views
As do I. Was that supposed to have any relevance to my post? *NM* - 02/02/2018 09:34:57 PM 361 Views
Re: As do I. Was that supposed to have any relevance to my post? - 02/02/2018 10:37:21 PM 565 Views
Yes, you did misunderstand me then. - 03/02/2018 12:17:27 AM 593 Views
yes, that's makes sense. - 03/02/2018 09:41:46 AM 487 Views
It does bring up more questions... - 02/02/2018 10:53:01 PM 629 Views
Seems you already decided on some answers in advance, though. - 03/02/2018 01:53:00 AM 480 Views
With over 34,000 FISA applications just 12 (not 12,000 or 1200 or 120) were denied. - 03/02/2018 04:07:24 PM 642 Views
Correction: "just under", not "over" 34,000 - 03/02/2018 10:08:54 PM 569 Views
Bah! - 03/02/2018 11:53:05 PM 574 Views
Ok, I really did laugh out loud at that - 06/02/2018 09:16:50 PM 445 Views
Those are the ones we have to watch! - 04/02/2018 12:48:49 AM 541 Views
He's the primary demographic for the 4Chans, isn't he? *NM* - 06/02/2018 09:15:47 PM 335 Views
This part was quite revealing - 02/02/2018 08:23:28 PM 518 Views
I do find it very telling how many members of the media are suddenly opposed to transparency - 02/02/2018 08:51:28 PM 511 Views
Ironic, right? - 02/02/2018 09:12:43 PM 471 Views
So you are saying the House Intelligence Committee SHOULD release Schiffs rebuttal of Nunes' lies? - 03/02/2018 03:58:13 AM 594 Views
I am for releasing all of it - 04/02/2018 12:28:57 AM 577 Views
You, Sen. Kennedy (R-LA) and NO ONE ELSE on the right. - 04/02/2018 07:41:17 AM 911 Views
To summarize..... - 02/02/2018 09:12:06 PM 544 Views
I seem to recall much incredulity when Trump claimed he was being wire tapped - 02/02/2018 09:15:14 PM 491 Views
Er. Let me see if I'm getting this right. - 02/02/2018 09:34:14 PM 548 Views
They did somehow tap Flynn - 02/02/2018 10:44:55 PM 503 Views
Keep in mind Sessions wanted Rosenstein to resign - 02/02/2018 11:28:52 PM 436 Views
Why would SESSIONS want Rosenstein fired? - 03/02/2018 05:22:16 AM 541 Views
It was on a list of about 40 Sessions wanted fired. Probably becuase he is a lib *NM* - 04/02/2018 12:31:13 AM 357 Views
Sessions is a lib? Do you mean Libertarian? - 04/02/2018 07:57:45 AM 949 Views
Dear Joel, - 03/02/2018 04:31:18 AM 580 Views
I have - 03/02/2018 05:09:19 AM 501 Views
You’re getting to old to be this naive - 03/02/2018 05:17:44 AM 489 Views
Never said either side is the good guys - 03/02/2018 05:36:55 AM 495 Views
WSJ source - 03/02/2018 05:04:04 AM 629 Views
well as long as you have an unnaamed source it must be true *NM* - 04/02/2018 01:05:36 AM 373 Views
What is your point? *NM* - 04/02/2018 01:53:37 AM 306 Views
What is yours? - 04/02/2018 04:30:51 PM 428 Views
The key issue is being ignored - 04/02/2018 04:35:32 PM 454 Views
Answer = Hell Yes - 04/02/2018 09:00:49 PM 458 Views

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