Thursday Reads
Posted: December 15, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, Jack Dorsey, James Comey, Russia hacking election, Twitter, Vladimir Putin 50 Comments
Photoshop by John Flynn
https://twitter.com/bryne
Good Afternoon!!
I’m getting a late start today. Yesterday was super-stressful, but I got through it and I’m feeling much better now. A lawyer and two real estate agents came to view the house yesterday. My brother came to support me and he filmed the whole thing. My sister-in-law was also here and she gave the lawyer an earful. I have the sense now that the powers-that-be may let me stay here for awhile to see if I can get senior housing. At least I’m safe until January 9 when I have to go to court again. My brother and sister-in-law will be there also as well as a friend who is an attorney.
Thank you Sky Dancers for the support you gave me on Tuesday and beyond. I love you all!
tRump was tweeting again this morning. The latest meltdown came after read (or had read to him?) a piece in Vanity Fair: Trump Grill Could Be The Worse Restaurant in America, and it reveals everything you need to know about our next president, by Tina Nguyen.
Donald Trump is “a poor person’s idea of a rich person,” Fran Lebowitz recently observed at The Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit. “They see him. They think, ‘If I were rich, I’d have a fabulous tie like that.’” Nowhere, perhaps, does this reflection appear more accurate than at Trump Grill (which is occasionally spelled Grille on various pieces of signage). On one level, the Grill (or Grille), suggests the heights of plutocratic splendor—a steakhouse built into the basement of one’s own skyscraper.
Uday and Qusay dining at Trump Grill
On another level, Trump Grill falls somewhat short of that lofty goal. The restaurant features a stingy number of French-ish paintings that look as though they were bought from Home Goods. Wall-sized mirrors serve to make the place look much bigger than it actually is. The bathrooms transport diners to the experience of desperately searching for toilet paper at a Venezuelan grocery store. And like all exclusive bastions of haute cuisine, there is a sandwich board in front advertising two great prix fixe deals.
The allure of Trump’s restaurant, like the candidate, is that it seems like a cheap version of rich. The inconsistent menus—literally, my menu was missing dishes that I found on my dining partners’—were chock-full of steakhouse classics doused with unnecessarily high-end ingredients. The dumplings, for instance, come with soy sauce topped with truffle oil, and the crostini is served with both hummus and ricotta, two exotic ingredients that should still never be combined. The menu itself would like to impress diners with how important it is, randomly capitalizing fancy words like “Prosciutto” and “Julienned” (and, strangely, ”House Salad”).
Hahahahahaha! Please go read the whole thing. You won’t be sorry.
tRump was not amused.
Of course Graydon Carter is the man who famously started the meme about tRump as “the short-fingered vulgarian.” I had a subscription to Spy Magazine in those days–if only that great publication were still with us.
Poor tRump, no matter how hard he tries he will never fit in with the “classy” rich folks he has always dreamed of fitting in with. Yesterday he called a meeting with a bunch of tech executives, and every single one of them should be embarrassed for participating in the meeting. The funny part is the major tech company that was left out.
Politico: Source: Twitter cut out of Trump tech meeting over failed emoji deal.
Twitter was told it was “bounced” from Wednesday’s meeting between tech executives and President-elect Donald Trump in retribution for refusing during the campaign to allow an emoji version of the hashtag #CrookedHillary, according to a source close to the situation.
Trump adviser Sean Spicer later denied the report, telling MSNBC that “the conference table was only so big.”
Oddly though, there was room for three of tRumps kids: Uday, Qusay, and future First Lady Ivanka.
But POLITICO’s source said the social media company’s exclusion from the much-publicized, feel-good confab in Trump Tower stemmed from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s role in rejecting the anti-Clinton emoji — a rejection that brought public complaints from the president-elect’s campaign.
Twitter was one of the few major U.S. tech companies not represented at Wednesday afternoon’s Trump Tower meeting attended by, among others, Apple’s Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Tesla’s Elon Musk — an omission all the more striking because of Trump’s heavy dependence on the Twitter platform. With some 17.3 million followers of his account, the president-elect has made Twitter into the de facto press channel of his transition operation.
Trump’s campaign also made a $5 million deal with Twitter before the election, in which the campaign committed “to spending a certain amount on advertising and in exchange receive discounts, perks, and custom solutions,” the campaign’s director of digital advertising and fund raising, Gary Coby, wrote in a Medium post last month. So the campaign objected when the company refused to allow the anti-Clinton emoji.
Hahahahaha! What a bratty loser tRump is.
On a more serious note, NBC News reported last night that Vladimir Putin was “personally involved” in the hacking and leaking of emails designed to hurt Clinton and help tRump in the 2016 election: U.S. Officials: Putin Personally Involved in U.S. Election Hack.
U.S. intelligence officials now believe with “a high level of confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.
Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the
officials said.
Putin’s objectives were multifaceted, a high-level intelligence source told NBC News. What began as a “vendetta” against Hillary Clinton morphed into an effort to show corruption in American politics and to “split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn’t depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore,” the official said.
More at the link.
Meanwhile, right win sources are reporting that James Comey personally told tRump that there is “no credible evidence” that Russia interfered with our election. I won’t link to this, but you can google it at The Blaze:
According to sources who were briefed on conversations that FBI Director James Comey had with President-elect Donald Trump, Comey told Trump that there was no credible evidence to suggest that the Russian government played any part in the outcome of the 2016 election.
Townhall reported late Wednesday that during the same phone conversation, Comey told Trump that National Intelligence Director James Clapper agreed with the FBI’s stance that there was no evidence to suggest Russian influence in the election.
Comey allegedly told Trump that there was only one U.S. intelligence official who was convinced the Russians were behind the hacked emails, and that was CIA Director John Brennan. Comey also added, “And Brennan takes his marching orders from President Obama.”
The sources also stated that Comey told Trump he saw the recent leaks to the Washington Post and New York Times as an attempt by the Democratic party to diminish Trump’s victory in the election by alleging he had outside help from the Russian government.
residential election, or the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
If this is true, it’s time to indict Comey for treason.
ABC News is independently reporting a similar story to the one from NBC News: Officials: Master Spy Vladimir Putin Now Directly Linked to US Hacking.
Ever the master spy, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB colonel, was personally involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and efforts to interfere in the American elections, U.S. and foreign intelligence officials tell ABC News.
A spokesperson for Putin today called the reports “funny nonsense” but American intelligence agencies are failing to see any humor in the bold Russian cyber-attacks and the apparent role of the Russian president.
People in the intelligence community directly involved in uncovering and tracking the Russian hack say a new flow of information has directly connected Putin to what began as a lower-level effort by the Russian military to infiltrate the computers of both Republican and Democratic figures.
Once the hackers were successful in breaching the DNC’s systems, Putin became more directly involved with the effort, they say….
In October, the U.S. Intelligence Community said it “is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions.”
At the time, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security said that “based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”
And NPR reports that “Trump disciples” are suddenly showing up in Moscow.”
Donald Trump hasn’t been inaugurated yet, but members of his campaign entourage are already riding the president-elect’s coattails all the way to Moscow.
On Monday, Jack Kingston, a former Trump surrogate, briefed American businesspeople in Russia on what they might expect from the incoming administration.
Lifting Western sanctions that were imposed on Russia because of its armed intervention in Ukraine has become the top priority not only for the Kremlin but for foreign companies working in Moscow….
“Trump can look at sanctions. They’ve been in place long enough,” Kingston told NPR in Moscow. “Has the desired result been reached? He doesn’t have to abide by the Obama foreign policy. That gives him a fresh start.”
Wow. What about Russia’s genocide in Syria?
By chance, Kingston’s Moscow trip coincided with the visit of another Trump disciple, Carter Page, who once claimed to advise the Republican candidate on energy and Russia policy. The Trump campaign later distanced itself from Page after he came under scrutiny for his ties to Russia.
On Monday, Page held a news conference at the headquarters of Sputnik, a Russian state-run news agency, where he complained about the proliferation of fake news.
Page lamented the “Cold War mindset” in the U.S. and sang the praises of Rex Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil CEO who expanded his company’s footprint in Russia and whom Trump now wants to be his secretary of state.
Again, wow. Isn’t it about time that President Obama gave a major Oval Office speech on this situation?
I’ll end there, because it’s getting really late. See you in the comments below.
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Vanity Fair on Spy Magazine vs. Donald Trump.
Trump’s War on Losers: The Early Years.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/08/spy-vs-trump
I went to high school with Kurt Anderson. He ruled the journalism room when I was a sophomore. One of my friends–we were the three C(K)athies not Heathers–had a serious crush on him. That was the only year of high school I kindve enjoyed. It went straight down hill to backwater high after that.
How on earth could any one vote for that scamming,”crooked short-finger vulgarian?” He’s like the sheriff of the most backassward Parish in Louisiana. Everything horrible he ever said about Hillary Clinton applies to him. He belongs in jail. No more crass gold crappers! Just freaking cold aluminum ones!
Now that there is a great expression that I share.
https://www.theatlantic.com/liveblogs/2016/12/news-today/510755/12545/?utm_source=twb
Red Cross reports that there’s an evacuation of Eastern Aleppo. A one day ceasefire is on.
“split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn’t depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore,”
Image becomes reality with the inauguration of tRump. It’s like the entire US administration is helpless as the train barrels off the rails. All the ‘woe is US’ does nothing to confront the problem. Only strong, clear, principled executive intervention has a chance, and I see no hint that PBO is up to it.
Seriously …
A wonderful cool song
simply… superb!
Good song. Incredible singing.
I am thoroughly disappointed in President Obama throughout all of this. I was no fan early in his administration but I later came to admire him for his strength and leadership. Where is that strength and leadership now? Why is he sitting on his hands saying nothing? FFS I think we are all resigned to the fact that we are stuck with Trump for 4 years the least Obama could do is give a speech and reassure us that the republic will survive because I’m really not sure of that right now. Every single day I awake to new tweets and revelations that astonish me. How did we end up with a temperamental, immature, ignorant, racist, misogynist fool as PEOTUS?
Years ago, we had a discussion with my in laws about whether or not we would choose to live anywhere else but the U.S. if the opportunity presented itself and I was the only one who said that I would not. Everyone looked at me as if I were crazy but I said that my grandparents risked everything to come to this country to give me the opportunities and privileges of being an American and I would never give that up. I feel differently now, I really do. If the opportunity arose, I would leave. I am still heartbroken about this election.
Every day you think to yourself that it can’t get any worse. And every day it does.
We have a bored and unhappily married man about to enter the WH. A man with a “crush” on his daughter whom he cannot go one day without seeing. She will occupy space designated for “the First Lady” while concurrently running his business operations and taking part high level meetings. Wonderful!
Her husband will be meddling in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and guess whose side he is on.
The rest of the cabinet will also be busy familiarizing themselves with the running of their respective posts as most of them have little or no experience in their chosen roles. Ben Carson as head of HUD? Right.
The military advisers are a problem as well but hey, who cares when they come with a chestful of medals even if one of them has been certified as a real “nut job”. He too is “close” to Putin and that counts for a lot with this group.
We have no idea what is actually going on. No one seems to be in a big rush to find out. Heeing and hawing over setting committees isn’t reassuring when no actual committee is in sight so far.
What I assume is that Putin, by way of Manafort and Paige Carter, signaled Trump of his intentions and Trump knew full well what was happening on his behalf. Toss in James Comey and you have what is commonly known as a “coup”.
It all boils down to those pesky sanctions. Without them all involved would be trillionaires today and with the “useful idiot” now ensconced in the WH “their will be done” in a matter of weeks.
Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and anyone else who knowingly looked the other way should be charged with treason. However, that is about as likely to happen as Mitt Romney developing a spine.
This is bad. As bad as it gets. A monster dumb ass as POTUS beholden to a monster dictator holding the winning hand.
I agree that Trump knew what was happening. Even the Russian ambassador said that the Russian government had been talking to Trump insiders throughout the campaign. This is going to be a massive scandal that makes Watergate and Iran Contra look like child’s play. If Trump doesn’t start WWIII first.
Love this BB. Great post
Thank you, JJ.
Where does one even start? That is the problem, it is not one awful person, or a cabal of them, as in the Nixon Administration. It is like a disease which has infected the entire body politic. The FBI Director, based on this story, is a political operative (just what Harry Reid called him), whose entire goal was to get Trump elected. The FBI is thus a partisan arm of the Republican Party, perhaps forever. It is the Gestapo.
So what else have we got to possibly help us? Not the media, they both caused and exploited all of this. Obama? He called Comey “an honorable man,” and he wasn’t being Mark Antony sarcastic. If Obama truly thinks Comey is honorable, he is either putting nonconfronation ahead of the country’s welfare, or completely clueless. Of course, Obama reappointed him, which was a dreadful idea. So many antecdents to this unparalleled tragedy.
We know now, if we somehow didin’t before, that the Republican Party has devolved into some antediiluvian creature (probably an insult to the real ones), which is only about winning, no matter what treachery or evil they have to employ to do it. We read today that the North Carolina Republican-controlled legislature is actually trying to strip the new NC Democratic governor of his power. They will do absolutely anything to win, even destroy the entire country in the process; or turn it over to Russia. It does not matter to them. And who can effectively call them out for any of this? Not Obama, certainly, he never has. He let them intimidate him at every political turn. Not the media. Not the FBI. Probably not the stacked courts. Not the Supreme Court, which Obama would not fill with the swing Justice, because he didn’t want to upset the Republicans and their media collaborators.
So many of us look at this and say, “This must be stopped,,” or, “They have to be charged with crimes for this.” But that is perhaps a vestige from our younger days, when we essentially believed in justice, and that the truth will eventually seep out to the people, and that we have the mechanisms in place to fix it. As in Watergate, or even to a lesser extent, Iran-Contra. But the Republicans have systematically taken over or dismantled all of these protections. Remember, Nazi Germany was not defeated from within, but by other nations who fought them. Does American have the ability and will to actually get rid of these Republicans and their collaborators in all areas of our government? Right now, the alt-reality media turns every story into false equivalence. CIA vs. Comey. Trump vs. every credible Intelligence source we have. Conway vs. the Wapo and Newsweek. To somehow try to sum up, we need Democrats in power to risk censure, criticism, and everything else, to fight to get the truth out there. And can Obama just once, before he leaves office, tell the country what the Republicans have done? Eisenhower used his last major speech to warn about the military-industiral complex, and that speech was quoted for decades. What will Obama do upon his leaving a country which is one small step away from a fascist theocracy puppet of Russia?
He will do nothing. He is about to venture into the private sector where there is money to be made.
Speeches, books, paid interviews that will propel him onto the road to real prosperity. He was never a fighter but an appeaser so why start now. Why inflame those who can pave this road with opportunity as long as you “go along to get along”.
Where is he now? Why has he been silent in the face of this treachery? Who do we look to to straighten this ship of fools? No one is there. Name one who we should place our hopes with? I can’t. They have all capitulated – or more than likely will – because we have become a nation of sheep. Fat and complacent as long as we are entertained.
We have entered an era of “no holds barred”. Just look at the incoming cabinet and the future POTUS who has the attention span of an infant and the brains of a toad.
Obama kissed us goodbye months ago when this stuff could have been revealed and possibly saved us from this incoming disaster.
I basically spend every alert moment saying “what fresh hell?” And I’ve stopped watching TV news altogether because our President Elect is a trigger for my PTSD from emotionally abusive relationships. I’m tired of anxiety and panic attacks. I even talked to my doctor yesterday at my annual exam because I’m worried my antidepressant/antianxiety script is working anymore.
I wouldn’t be suprised if in the new DSM, there is something along the lines of “Trump Anxiety Syndrome.” So many people I talk to or read something by, express things like that. I find myself waking up in the middle of the night, and immediately some unsettling thought along these lines pops up. Or I am at a movie, and instead of focusing on the plot, I think of the horrors impending.
I do think that fighting against these forces, as you do so bravely here, can be a palliative. I know that giving up does not help, and does not even make one feel better; though of course breaks are necessary, too. The pervasiveness of the takeover by Republicans in the last twenty years is going to be hard to easily overcome. Too many people in power did very little to stop it; out of inertia or ennui or smugness. HIllary told everyone that there was a vast right-wing conspiracy, and got so much heat for it, even from those who should have been on her side. One thing to possibly provide hope, is that Hillary won counties which provide 68% of the U.S. economy. That is a lot of power to leverage, if people can figure out how to do it. I am in favor of any non-violent and legal action which would disrupt what is going on, even if it damages the national economy. We are fighting against people with no compass whatsoever outside of their own lust for power and control of others; lives; as if the early Puritans who put people in stocks, and burned others as witches, had been able to spread their sick philosophy throughout the entire country in the 17th century.
I don’t watch much TV anyway, but I have to say Rachel Maddow’s shows have been outstanding lately. Her coverage of Trump’s conflicts of interest and the Russian interference have been excellent. Last night she had an analysis of Putin’s trashing of the Russian economy, proving he has made himself the richest man in the world. Then she reduced Exxon to rubble. Lawrence O’Donnell has been good too.
Netflix has a short documentary by French investigators about Putin’s wealth – production value is low but the info is interesting. Putin has a watch fetish and owns something like $500K worth of them. He has an enormous palace you can find on Google Earth (forget where though) that is reportedly worth a billion. He basically uses a friend as proxy for his graft. The whole country is awash in graft.
Forgot to add – here’s a guy from very modest circumstances who has been in government his entire adult life and is believed to be the richest man in Europe.
But tRump et al doesn’t find anything wrong with that picture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin%27s_Palace
Nice digs* for the son of a factory worker and naval recruit.
* If you like vulgar ostentation
This:
We beg them to save the country while they terrorize their families.
Several high-profile Trump critics were forced off Twitter in the last couple of days too. Death threats.
What the hell, there is no end in sight to their violence. This is really really bad.
Fits right in with reporters getting death threats, being sent tweets with rapidly flickering high-contrast and high-intensity images to provoke seizures, and threats to their families.
White supremacist terrorism.
These fucking people cause my jaw to drop EVERY SINGLE DAY!
Wtf?
She doesn’t know anyone from Berlin then. My wife never got to see her father again after that wall went up. Not one time. We met her half brother for the very first time just 3 years ago. 5 years ago we didn’t even know she had a brother. These folks are odious in the extreme. They are narcissists who don’t care about others in any meaningful way. Just a total failure in understanding what it means to be human.
That’s heartbreaking, gregoryp. The first thing I thought when I saw it was that the fool has no clue what devastation that wall brought to people and their families. Trumpeters are just ignorant sociopaths, all of them.
*Trumpsters. Stupid auto correct.
You are right. It is heartbreaking. I showed my wife that photo and it nearly brought her to tears. Her story isn’t even close to being the worst that I have heard. That wall was one of the worst evils ever inflicted upon others by men. Lots of good people perished because of that wall. Lots of families were crushed.
This woman actually holds a PHD in international relations. She insists on being called “Doctor”. She believes in “small government”.
A PhD is indeed a doctorate, (from the Latin for “teach”), so “Doctor” is her title. Degrees don’t bring wisdom.
President Obama will be having a news conference at 2;15 PM EST tomorrow.
I will certainly not get my hopes up. Maybe he will surprise me to the upside. Best guess is that he will just calmly answer questions, say that we need to do an investigation, hope it is completed by next January, blah. We need something dramatic and compelling.
I’ll tune in. I don’t know what happened, but damn I want to cry when I think that democrats let Hillary down. We did, cause I can’t help thinking how happy I was on Nov 7th………
Friends are excited about the press conference. I’m not. I think you’re right that he’ll calmly answer questions, blah blah blah.
BB, I’m very happy to read that you have such a strong support group.
Woot, Woot, things will go well BB.
This morning I was really agitated by the Trump situation and wrote the following to one of my Senators. I have no delusions that it will make a difference but I got it off my chest:
How can we, as a country, let the hacking of our election by a foreign government stand? We look like a bunch of wimps, jerks who are willing to just sit by and allow another country to take over the leadership of the USA.
I cannot think of any other country that would let this happen; we claim to be the strongest nation in the world. How can we carry that title when we no longer stand up for our republic?
If you don’t think it is a take-over, you must have been hiding out somewhere as this election’s campaign took place.
I’m seventy four years old, angry and embarrassed at this debacle and more so that no one is mounting a force de majeure – Eisenhower, FDR, and Truman must be rolling over in their graves, to think the Russians have put one over on us; and I’m sure Mr. Putin is having a hearty laugh, while our ‘leaders’ sit doing nothing.
Whatever happened to our past leadership – patriots willing to do anything to protect our union?
It appears that the Republicans are perfectly willing to let this election stand because ‘their boy won’ and the Democrats don’t have the guts to take it on.
I am so disheartened and disgusted with our elected officials who are absolutely useless in this crisis.
I need a new “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention” bumper sticker. What fresh hell, indeed.
I was thinking about how well drumf’s behavior with twitter compared with human traffickers and pimps. Find the strong one in the group and woo her with money, then, when she complains about something, beat her up kill her up in front of the others as an example to intimidate them.
Several of the folks I know who voted for trump are suffering from ‘buyers remorse’ as the facts of his cheating to win and how he was right when he kept saying ‘the system is rigged’, we were wrong in thinking he meant in Hillz favor. All the time he was working on rigging it for himself
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I love this.
BB……..I’m so sorry about your housing situation. I’ve been so distracted from the internet with family issues that I missed your posting on Tuesday. I hope that all of this works out for you and you’re able to find suitable housing soon. I wish there was something I could do to help good people like you who are struggling. Just know that I keep you always in my good thoughts and wish you peace. Keep us posted on what’s happening.
Thank goodness for Joy Reid and Malcom Nance.
It feels like Obama is abandoning the ship. Good luck all! I did my best!