Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot

I can see Russia from this blog!

This is a big f—–g deal.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

This blog is Obama’s Katrina.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

This blog will pay for itself.

We can agree to disagree, but I’m right.

Gastritis Broke My Calculator

Yes we did.

Too inconsequential to be sued

We still have time to mess this up!

Almost as fun as hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Militantly superior in their own minds…

What fresh hell is this?

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Also, too.

Lighten up, Francis.

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How Did They Do It?

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One of the things that continuously amazes and depresses me is the success with which right wing politicians and media have successfully brainwashed millions of people. Every now and then a high school friend will post something obviously wrong on facebook, and you correct them WITH multiple sources, and they either don’t care and say they still believe it and then lash out at you. It’s crazy.

This time it was about a piece of commentary on Fox News alleging Dems had blocked a VA health care bill last year (they had, because it was an attempt to privatize the VA and then two months later an actual VA bill was passed), and the people were screaming PARTY BEFORE COUNTRY and how much they hate Pelosi and what not.

They’re all so angry, scared, and hostile, and will just believe anything FOX or the proper news source will tell them, and they just get livid with you for telling them that is not the truth. And it is always people who, in another lifetime, never had political opinions- but now they are just livid at the supposed enemy all the time, over made up grievances. And then they go out and actually reward the people screwing them and elect Republicans. Who just make up more lies.

I don’t know how to break the cycle of willing ignorance.

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Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: “How did the Republican party arrive at this place?”

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Disinformation Is Coming To A Computer Near You

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With the 2020 election coming up, we can expect plenty of disinformation in our news feeds. Disinformation originates in many places – Russia and homegrown United States. It filters up into what we would like to think of as reliable news sources. Those sources, because of their desire to believe that “both sides” have equal claim to truth, can be manipulated.

I’ll continue to post about recognizing that disinformation, because it’s up to all of us to make sure that what we’re sharing is truthful.

The New York Times has a big article from Josh Owens, who worked for Infowars and now says he regrets it. Another article, on Britain’s struggle with Russia over the poisoning, on British soil, of two people with a nerve agent by Russians, contains information about how the Russians use disinformation.

The Times article depicts Alex Jones as violent and demanding that his employees generate outrageously fear-producing stories. Nothing that Infowars touches should be considered reliable. Respectable news organizations should trace stories to their origins and reject anything that has been pushed by Infowars unless it has completely independent backing.

One of the stories Infowars pushed was that Fukushima radiation was showing up on the west coast of the United States. The responsible media dealt reasonably well with that, although it took some time. Here’s what the Washington Post reported in 2014. But I also saw (and debunked) a lot of sharing on social media of maps that weren’t of radiation levels and the dramatic video of radiation measurements on a California beach.

Russian and Republican disinformation flood the zone with alternative stories, designed to turn people off by making it too difficult to figure out what’s right so that people give up. “They’re all liars.” or “Nobody can really know.”

After the Skripals were poisoned and the British government began putting out information to its citizens, the Russian government jumped in, attacking the British information for apparent contradictions and offering up multiple explanations of the incident. The point was to make people doubt their own government. The Atlantic article lays this out in full detail for the Skripal incident.

What can you do?

First, stop thinking “They’re all liars.” or “Nobody can really know.” I know it’s cool to be cynical, but in doing that, you’re giving up your ability to think critically and make good choices and probably helping to muddy the waters for others.

Second, know who supplied the material you’re sharing on social media. Most of us don’t have time or aren’t set up to trace material back to its Russian or Infowars roots. So if you don’t know that the material came from a reliable source, don’t share it. Just don’t.

Third, if you’re concerned about something you’ve seen, check with an expert. Snopes fact-checks many of the memes you may see. Washington Post has a fact-check column. FactCheck.org is another good resource. You can ask me about science-related stuff. You can ask David Anderson about health insurance. We’re both available through “Contact Us.”

There is such a thing as fact. You can find it. Or at least avoid spreading disinformation.

Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner

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SNAP Back

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I grew up in a poor town next to a reservation, and I can’t tell you how many times people complained about the use of food stamps. It’s very easy, and very common, for older white people to judge younger brown people who use SNAP or WIC in the grocery line. So, when Trump cuts food stamps (SNAP), he knows what he’s doing and who he’s appealing to. Doing it right before Christmas is just a little bit of shit frosting on the turd cake, the only kind of dessert that a Trump supporter thinks that the poor or brown deserve.

There are plenty of Trump voters on SNAP and Medicaid. As Adam noted in his post last night, of the 43% of Americans who get their news from Facebook, 62% are white, and 61% are women. If some billionaire would put a few million bucks on ads targeting poor whites in swing districts (in fact poor whites on SNAP – they probably know who they are), I think you could move some votes. The news media will dutifully report it and move on–can’t blame them, because in this media market, a click from a poor is pretty worthless. So when SNAP gets withdrawn, it’s pretty likely that a low information Trump voter might just blame it on the evil government in general (especially since Republicans in government have been running against the government they helped build – and getting away with it – for a long time).

I realize that ads putting money directly into Zuckerberg’s pocket, but there might be a way to leverage Facebook without paying Zuckerberg directly. This ratfucking operation targeting Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib used Facebook news pages to increase shares on anti-Islam fake news. Since I’ve done searches on Omar in particular, I get “news” articles pushed to me from pseudo-authentic right wing sites.

If Facebook and purpose-built news sites are the weapons of this war, we need to use them. Democrats have a hard time doing it because ratfucking isn’t part of our DNA, but we don’t need to be spreading fake news to get more views on our real news.

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Why Do The Investigations Seem To End Too Early?

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Something has bothered me since Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Let’s look at the letter appointing him special counsel:

  • Robert S. Mueller III is appointed to serve as Special Counsel…

Not Special Prosecutor, as he is often titled. Special Counsel.

  • any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump…

Based on these words, I expected a very different report from Mueller.

Mueller acted more as a prosecutor than an investigator. Perhaps I am getting this wrong; in internet parlance, IANAL, I am not a lawyer.

Mueller prosecuted cases against Paul Manafort and the the Internet Research Agency of St. Petersburg. His investigations supported Michael Cohen’s conviction and Michael Flynn’s guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. There are probably others, but that is not my point. His investigation seems to have been for the purpose of finding prosecutable crimes.

I expected that “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump” would have included a great deal more than what was in the report.

There were a great many contacts between Russians and the Trump campaign, or near misses like Maria Butina, who got cozy with the NRA, which supported Trump. The Russians used hacked files from the Democratic National Committee to help Republicans beyond Trump.

The Republican platform was changed to weaken support for Ukraine; the Mueller report mentions this, but notes that Trump seems to have been unaware of the change. The person who seems to have been responsible for it, J. D. Gordon, also is connected to Carter Page, who has his own Russian connections. And then there is George Papadopoulos, also with Russian connections.

Perhaps some of these Russian connections, like Butina, can be said not to have been connected with the Trump campaign. The hacked files used against other candidates, again not related to the Trump campaign. Although the platform change may not have involved Trump, his campaign certainly was involved with it, and with those other folks with hinky Russian connections. But these were investigated cursorily, if at all.

I don’t understand how Mueller interpreted the charge and why. I would like to know more about that.

It seems to be difficult to report on connections to Russia without being accused of paranoia. Additionally, some popular voices have greatly exaggerated connections to Russia on the basis of inadequate information.

I do not believe Putin is minutely directing a campaign to destroy the United States. He does not work like that. He remains a KGB colonel with access to the power of a state. He is a tactician rather than a strategist. He wants Russia to be recognized as a great power. Russia is in a strange position internationally. Its nuclear arsenal is equivalent to that of the United States, but its economy is about the size of Texas’s, based primarily on extractive industries. A nuclear great power, but not much else.

The way for Russia to be a great power is to lessen the influence of other great powers. Hence a campaign to divide Americans and Europeans, internally and from each other.

The campaign is loosely run – more a matter of “Who will rid me of these turbulent adversaries?” than of detailed planning and late nights in the Kremlin. Thus, multiple Russian actors, backed by multiple oligarchs, show up in the Mueller Report and in other ways.

Trump always has something bad to say about America’s allies, but never about Vladimir Putin and other autocrats. The connections across the Republican Party to Russia are many, as far as we know now, largely through donations. The Dallas Morning News has had major articles on this means of influence (August 2017, December 2017, two in May 2018) . Why haven’t other news outlets joined the investigation? Why isn’t this mentioned as common knowledge when Tucker Carlson sides with Russia over Ukraine?

There are so many stories that need more investigation.

Trump’s history with Russia. 1987 seems to be a turning point. And, of course, the noteless meetings with Vladimir Putin, particularly in Helsinki in July 2018.

Devin Nunes’s midnight run to the White House

Kevin McCarthy’s comment about Putin paying Trump and Dana Rohrabacher. McCarthy received a campaign contribution from Rudy Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, which he is returning. He is not the only one to receive money from them.

Parnas and Fruman are currently a focus of media attention. Parnas would like to testify to Congress, but there is little reason to believe anything he says until we understand better his connections to Giuliani and Trump and to people like Dmytro Firtash.

Eight Republican members of Congress spent the Fourth of July, 2018, in Moscow. They met with senior Russian officials. They are Richard Shelby (AL), Ron Johnson (WI), John Neely Kennedy (LA), Jerry Moran (KS), Steve Daines (MT), John Hoeven (ND), John Thune (SD) and Rep. Kay Granger (TX). Johnson and Kennedy have been extremely vocal lately in spreading the Russian propaganda meme that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked the campaigns in 2016.

And, oh yes, the US Intelligence Community report of January 2017 said that the Republican campaign was hacked too. We haven’t seen any more about that.

That’s the list I come up with over a day or two of thought. I’ll bet there’s more.

There is a throughline to all this: Russian interference in American politics. It’s a big story, to be sure, but one that we need to hear. Most of it was not covered in the Mueller investigation. The House Intelligence Committee hearings have been on a very small part of it. News organizations are working on parts of it. We need more.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner

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Today’s Public Relations Fail

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South Dakota, like a lot of other rural states, has a meth problem. Today they rolled out a campaign to deal with it.

Evidently nobody along the way said, um, that could be taken in two ways.

The negligence here is cruel. Let us hope those are models in those photos, and not real people who thought they were helping to deal with South Dakota’s drug problem.

How does something this bad happen? Lack of diversity? An ad agency just in it for the money?

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Here We Go Again

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This used to be one of the slowest weeks of the news year, when reporters and political cartoonists could go on vacation with little fear of missing a big story. I’d like to go back to those halcyon days, thank you!
 

Mangy Jay phrases it well:

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Jon Stewart Is an Unsupervised Child Playing With a Loaded Gun

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If you haven’t seen or heard about it yet, earlier today Jon Stewart, on behalf of ill 9-11 first responders, threw a temper tantrum in front of the cameras during a House subcommittee hearing. Specifically the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. This subcommittee, a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, has fourteen members: 8 Democrats and 6 Republicans. And in today’s meeting Congressman Nadler, who is an ex-officio member as the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, was also sitting in. At the point that Stewart decided to pitch his fit during his opening remarks about there being an “empty Congress”, seven of the subcommittee members were in the room. Though you could only see six of them in the video because of how the cameras were angled. The subcommittee meets in the same chambers as the full House Judiciary Committee, so even if everyone was there, the dais at the front of the room where the members of the subcommittee sit would look somewhere around 2/3 empty as there are 41 members of the full Judiciary Committee.

If Stewart did not know or did not understand that this was the case, then he’s a moron. More likely, he knew, understood the optics, and used them to gin up outrage. Stewart knew, was counting on, and was not disappointed that 1) it won’t be initially reported that this was a 14 member subcommittee and 2) most Americans will neither know, nor understand that this is why, despite at least half the subcommittee members actually being in attendance at the time he was ranting, most of the seats on the dais are empty.

The House is going to pass the extension without an issue. With an actual large numbers of votes from members of both parties. The vote to move it out of the Judiciary Committee is actually scheduled for tomorrow and it will pass there, and then the full House in short order, with significant bipartisan support. But once it does, it has to go across the Capitol to the Senate. Stewart knows, and if he doesn’t, then he should, that the problem isn’t the House or its Democratic majority. Rather it’s the McConnell controlled, GOP majority Senate. Should Senator McConnell deign to allow this to move forward, given he’s bottled up everything else the House has passed, he’s likely to demand ransom to do so. Why? Because he watched how Stewart manipulated the news media today to hammer the Democrats running the House of Representatives for failing to take care of 9-11 first responders who are ill because of their service on 9-11. Senator McConnell also knows that if he does nothing, because there isn’t going to be an equivalent hearing in the Senate to produce equally negative publicity, that he and his GOP majority in the Senate will take no blame. And because he knows that if it fails, Stewart will simply rebroadcast today’s video, the news media will follow like lemmings, and he’ll have made this a problem for Democrats going into a presidential election year where his Republican senators are defending more seats than the Senate Democrats are in 2020. Senator McConnell already had too much leverage and Stewart’s tantrum today simply gave him more.

Steve Cohen, who chairs the subcommittee, should have stopped Stewart, cut his mic if necessary, and explained that 1) this is a subcommittee with only 14 members, 2) as is standard procedure, subcommittee members would be in and out throughout the hearing as they had to do business, including taking votes in other committees and subcommittees (the ranking member actually did this at one point), and 3) Stewart could demagogue or the subcommittee could do the important business that Stewart wants them to do, but they could not and would not do both.

I appreciate Stewart’s passion. I understand why he’s angry. From his perspective even five year reauthorizations are a potential hindrance and failure to do right by the ill 9-11 first responders. But what he did today didn’t actually do anything to advance the cause he’s fighting for. It did make it easier for Senator McConnell to claim another scalp. Stewart’s bothsiderism served him, those for whom he’s advocating, and the Republic poorly today.

Open thread!

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A Couple of Matters for Your Consideration

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Nothing too earth shaking, I hope, but there’s a couple of things I’d like to share. The first is that the article adapted from my keynote address at the US Army’s Psychological Operations Regiment’s 100th anniversary regimental dinner is now published. If you are interested, you can find it at this link or on page 26 of the pdf below.

Special_Warfare_32-1_JAN_MAR_2019_web

But wait, there’s more…

Thanks to one of our commenters, who I will let self identify, I have been honored with an invitation to give a keynote address at a digital media/digital news media conference in October 2019. I’ll also be giving the cocktail hour/party teaser talk on the first night and participating in a round table panel. The details on the conference are here. And it is my understanding that the organizers plan to stream this, and, if so, provided John doesn’t have a problem, I’ll put links up here so those so inclined can watch.

To build support for the conference, I’ve been asked to do a weekly column, entitled Thinking Security dealing with issues in the information domain  – information warfare, influence operations, etc – that are, or should be, major concerns for digital publishers, the digital news media, more traditional news media, and consumers of the news. The first column went up at the end of last week and the next one will be up next week. You can find that first column at this link.

Open thread!

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Beating The War Drums

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National Security Advisor John Bolton still thinks that the Iraq war was a good idea. He has never met a war he didn’t like or a treaty that he did. Now, as Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor, he has a great deal of power to make war against Iran. Bolton has given speeches for the MEK, a cultish organization that wants regime change in Iran.

Trump pulled the United States out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, Iran deal) a year ago, under the fiction that his great deal-making skills and “maximum pressure” would force Iran into a deal where they would change their government, stop supporting Hamas, end all nuclear work, and, probably, build a Trump Tower Tehran. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has listed twelve points that Iran must meet to become a good world citizen in his eyes. Presumably, as in the case of North Korea, Iran must meet all those points before sanctions will be removed.

The JCPOA covers the possibility of Iran’s making nuclear weapons in full detail. Iran is complying with the agreement. But that’s not enough for a faction in the United States and Israel who opposed the JCPOA from the beginning and have continued to agitate for withdrawal from it.

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Greg Sargent: Trump Is Flailing

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Greg Sargent does something I was thinking of doing – listing all the ways Trump is flailing. Trump has always been protected from his own incompetence and sadism by layers of lackeys – Javanka, Michael Cohen, and even when he first became President, his generals, Javanka (still), and a minimally competent but toadying cabinet. He thought that being President means having unlimited power.

He had done what he wanted – or thought he did – as the head of the Trump organization. He never cared to see the people who were steering away from the rocks he found so alluring or who actually did the work to make things happen.

It turns out that there are many things that a President can’t do. That’s why we have a Constitution. The Founding Parents were quite explicit about that. People like John Kelly and Jim Mattis reminded him of that, so they had to go.

Now we have Trump unbound. Kirstjen Nielsen was one of the last to tell him no, if some of the reports are to be believed.

The handlers also steered Trump away from the places where they would have to tell him no. Without them, he is getting more noes.

Here’s Sargent’s list:

  • “Total exoneration” and Attorney General William Barr’s attempt to keep the Mueller report away from the public
  • Throwing in with the suit against the ACA and promising a new Republican health plan
  • The immigration clusterf**k

Trump is clearly becoming desperate on immigration. His emotions are getting out of control. He seems to believe that there is some physical way – his wall, the brutality of what he would like to be his Gestapo – to stop immigration from the south. That is simply not going to happen for both logistical and humanitarian reasons.

Trump knows only bullying and brute force. It’s hard to predict what he will do next in his flailing. But it’s better to note it than to pretend it’s some n-dimensional strategy for his base.

Open thread.

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Roger Stone Pursues the Path to Martyr-dumb!

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Bless his heart…

National security correspondent Dan Murphy has the chain of transmission:

Stone has already deleted the instagram post, and, of course, thrown an employee under the bus. Long time members of the party of personal responsibility never seem to take personal responsibility…

https://twitter.com/kathrynw5/status/1097596247156932608

To be serious here for a moment, a simple google image search for Judge Amy Berman Jackson, returns dozens of images of her. To find one with a cross hairs image or logo near her head meant that whomever went looking for an image for Stone’s post had to specifically either be looking for an image like that or trying to create one. Which is not surprising given that Stone has a long history of positing material with anti-Semitic themes or borrowing them from people and our sites that do. Here’s just one example. Also, why does it look like Rudy has a squirrel crawling around in his flight suit? Ewww!!!

In regard to Roger Stone, as they say in the south: that boy ain’t right!

This will definitely not get Judge Jackson removed from the case, but it is likely to get Federal law enforcement to overreact. Especially as some of the people who follow the conspiracy theories that Stone promotes tend to take them to heart and then take violent action as a result of them.

Though it is interesting to watch the seeming political evolution of former Congressman Joe Walsh:

Open thread!

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The Line of Succession for the Governorship of Virginia: Lieutenant Governor Fairfax Comes Under Fire

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Even as Governor Northam huddles with his cabinet as an attempt to maintain his governorship of Virginian, the same fine folks that thought Breitbart was too liberal have decided to direct fire against Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax.

From 13NewsNow:

Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax denies 2004 sexual assault allegation

The allegation involves an unsubstantiated claim of sexual assault against Fairfax during the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

RICHMOND, Va. — As Virginia Governor Ralph Northam faces increasing pressure to resign over a racist photograph from his 1984 medical school yearbook, the man who would take his place — Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax — is responding to accusations of his own.

The allegation involves an unsubstantiated claim of sexual assault against Fairfax during the Democratic National Convention in 2004. The claim was posted Sunday night on the same website that first published the racist photo from Gov. Northam’s yearbook.

The Washington Post, as well as our sister station WUSA9 in Washington D.C., have known about the claim for months, but have not been able to corroborate the allegations.

“Lt. Governor Fairfax has an outstanding and well-earned reputation for treating people with dignity and respect,” read the statement released on Twitter.

“He has never assaulted anyone – ever – in any way, shape or form.”

A post on the conservative website Big League Politics went live just as the Super Bowl ended late Sunday. Allies of the likely heir apparent to embattled Gov. Northam called the development a clear smear tactic, as Fairfax’s profile rises.

“This is part of the sad and dark politics that the Lt. Governor has dedicated himself to helping Virginia and the nation rise above,” the overnight statement read.

“The Lt. Governor will take appropriate legal action against those attempting to spread this defamatory and false allegation.”

WUSA9 is refraining from publishing further details of the claim, as key elements have not been able to be verified. Broad outlines of the claim are only being published after Fairfax’s office released an official statement now in public view.

The full details of the allegation are on Big League Politics.

This allegation was previously investigated by both local Virginia news outlets and The Washington Post last year and they could not substantiate it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true, or parts of it aren’t, but that the allegations couldn’t be corroborated and/or substantiated.

Here’s Lieutenant Governor Fairfax’s statement:

Longtime Republican campaign strategist and strategic communication professional Rick Wilson thinks something here stinks in regards to how the allegations against Lieutenant Governor Fairfax came to light just after a “concerned citizen” discovered Governor Northam’s yearbook page.

The problem here is that it doesn’t really make a lot of political sense to do all of this so far from the Virginia state elections that are coming up later this year. If either and/or both of these stories play out, with Northam ultimately resigning or being forced out by the Democrats in Virginia – and there is a process to do that – and Fairfax also having to step aside, it isn’t going to make the Democrats look like they didn’t take either and/or both of these problems seriously. Nor would it hand the governorship to a Republican as the next in the line of succession is Mark Herring, who is Virginia’s Attorney General and a Democrat. (emphasis mine below)

In the case of the removal of the Governor from office or in the case of his disqualification, death, or resignation, the Lieutenant Governor shall become Governor.

If a vacancy exists in the office of Lieutenant Governor when the Lieutenant Governor is to succeed to the office of Governor or to serve as Acting Governor, the Attorney General, if he is eligible to serve as Governor, shall succeed to the office of Governor for the unexpired term or serve as Acting Governor. If the Attorney General is ineligible to serve as Governor, the Speaker of the House of Delegates, if he is eligible to serve as Governor, shall succeed to the office of Governor for the unexpired term or serve as Acting Governor. If a vacancy exists in the office of the Speaker of the House of Delegates or if the Speaker of the House of Delegates is ineligible to serve as Governor, the House of Delegates shall convene and fill the vacancy.

If this is an attempt to place the Virginia governorship in Republican hands, sort of a coup by scandal, it won’t work unless there’s a scandalous story involving Virginia Attorney General Herring teed up and ready to be deployed because the only Republican in the line of succession is the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates is Republican William J. Howell.

What is unclear right now is what, in the larger political sense, specifically of partisan political warfare, is actually going on. If this is a coordinated attempt to remove the Democratic leadership of Virginia’s executive branch through selected news reports of opposition research that was either overlooked or never previously released because it couldn’t be verified, then expect Big League Politics or some other similar outlet to drop a story on Virginia Attorney General Herring in the next few days, especially if other news outlets give the allegations against Lieutenant Governor Fairfax serious coverage and the pressure builds on him to resign as well.

This much coincidence, long buried inappropriate behavior by Virginia’s Democratic governor and lieutenant governor that one would have expected to have been put forward as oppo research much earlier in their political careers, takes a lot of work. That it doesn’t seem to really be a coincidence doesn’t excuse Governor Northam’s admission he dressed in blackface to go to a theme party as Michael Jackson, even as he disputes that he is either the person in blackface or the person in the Klan costume pictured on his yearbook page. Nor would it excuse Lieutenant Governor Fairfax if the allegations that have surfaced regarding sexual assault are substantiated. That it would all surface right now seems much too convenient.

Once is chance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action.

Lieutenant Governor Fairfax is giving a press conference right now where he is both addressing the issues around Governor Northam and the resurfaced allegations against himself. I can’t find a live stream. If I do, I’ll update the post.

Open thread!

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We Need to See All the Videos Before Drawing Conclusions: Covington Catholic High School Students Yell at Young Women Edition

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Since we have to see all the videos of the fine young men from Covington Catholic High School, we definitely should make sure this is on the front page with the context provided by the person who both took the video and was in the group of young women being accosted and yelled at.

https://twitter.com/roflinds/status/1087507522259423232

Beware of the 21st century technological Panopticon. It sees all!

Open thread.

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The Trump Narrative

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I think that one reason people have taken up the Steele dossier as a key to Donald Trump’s election wrongdoing is that it is a relatively compact telling of events, from which a narrative may be extracted.

Most of the news coverage is of one small piece of the story at a time. The format of the articles tends to be a general statement of that small piece, perhaps with a bit of background, then a more detailed explanation of the small piece, and then more background. Space is limited, and the story is big. The cast appears to include thousands.

I find those articles largely unreadable and uninformative. Journalists seem to be having trouble too. Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of AP, said the Trump-Russia probes have “gone on so long that it’s difficult to be able to assess what in this investigation is truly very serious and what is not as serious. So that is one thing that journalists struggle with a little bit…” (video here; quote begins at 4:30) That certainly could be one reason that their articles are unreadable.

We need an overall story into which we can fit the breaking news. That will help us figure out what is truly very serious. Elliott Broidy, as far as we know now, is not as important to the story as Erik Prince, who is not as important as Donald Trump Jr. A master narrative can show where characters and subplots fit. Then the subplots can be written separately, noting the connections.

So I’m going to stick my neck out and provide a narrative. It is a bare-bones framework on which we can hang the many subplots and add in facts as they emerge. I’ve also added questions that need to be answered. I suspect that Robert Mueller has answers to some of those questions.

I invite you to suggest subplots. I’ll add them to my list and perhaps write another post in which I try to incorporate them into the narrative.

The narrative is below the fold.

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