The Trump/Russia connection is a constantly smoldering event. Nobody ever seems to really examine if there's a fire, but somebody should.
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Friday, December 15, 2023
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Democrats don't lose elections. . .
they throw them away.
It's the strongest trait of the Democratic Party.
Sunday, January 17, 2021
Something worth remembering . . .
Lex Anteinternet: The 2016 Election
Lex Anteinternet: The 2016 Election: I didn't see that coming. . . like all of the rest of the pundits. It's been a wild election year. Yesterday, Donald Trum...The popular vote:
Trump: 47%: 59,611,678
Clinton: 48% 59,814,018
Johnson: 3% 4,058,500
Stein: 1% 1,213,103
Others: .07% 802,119
A disappointing performance for Stein, given that she was trying to riff of the popular Sanders. Not very impressive for Johnson either, whom some thought would do well. That's probably at least 3,000,000 votes off of Trump, however.
Trump becomes President with a minority of votes cast. Clinton took more, albeit only 200,000 more. An example, perhaps, of every vote counting, or not, depending upon your view.
Monday, January 11, 2021
A Conspiracy Thesis about Conspiracy Theorist. Qanon is the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.
There's been a lot that occurred since I started this thread, which wasn't very long ago.
I didn't really know anything about Qanon until after the recent drama. It's hyper bizarre conspiracy theory is something that's so wacky, I frankly didn't pay much attention to it. Still, I've now, over the last month, heard a couple of people spout off comments that clearly originate from it.
You'd think that following the recent insurrection it'd be dead as a doornail. Nope, it's most diehard adherents still think that President Trump is going to arrest Joe Biden and that the Democrats will turn out to be a child pornography ring or something. That's not going to happen, and people who believe that this point are in full blown self delusion. But there are people who meet that description.
So how on earth did this oddity get rolling?
I have a theory. . .
And frankly, I think the source of all this nonsense is pretty obvious.
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Which means that all of the people who are spouting its theories, in whole or in part, are dupes of Russian intelligence.
This is one of those topics where a little knowledge of history makes things pretty plain, but which also means that when you look around the world and what's going on, it's just baffling. Isn't this really obvious? Well. . . of course it is, but you have to have a sense of history in order for that to be the case.
Okay, let's set out the evidence.
Russia has a long history of having one of the best deceptive services in the world. Indeed, the playbook that's being played here has been played before. Here's the cover of the first edition.
Eh? You don't recognize volume one of the Qanon playbook? Well more on that in a moment.
Imperial Russia had an extensive intelligence network. It had to, as it was constantly faced with revolutionary movements that contested the idea that one man, the Czar, actually owned the entire country. Indeed, the absurdity of that monarchical theory in the modern age is what gave rise to extreme counter movements. Extremist governments produce extremist reactions. To counter that, the crown needed secret policy.
When the Revolution came in 1917, its claimed that those policemen didn't transfer over to the new regime. Well, I'm skeptical. The Red Army would have failed in the Civil War if some of the better Imperial Russian officers didn't throw in with the Reds. It's not uncommon at all to find in biographies that so and so "had noble roots" even if serving the Communists. I'm guessing that a lot of Ivan's and Igor's in the secret police went right into the Cheka.
At any rate, and irrespective of whether that occurred or not, the Soviets certainly knew a lot about secret policing and spy craft as they'd been victims of it themselves. There's the old phrase about how to "catch a thief". Well, in a lot of instances, the best spies are made up of people who spied on you. Turning spies is an ancient part of spycraft.
The Soviet Union developed the best deceptive spycraft set of skills in the world following the Civil War. It's truly impressive. Part of that involved disseminating propaganda and controlling or infiltrating institutions. And part of that involved agents and sleeper agents.
It's well know that the Soviets had thousands of sleeper agents in the West. The USSR only fell in 1990 and it isn't as if the new emerged Russia called them home. They just stayed where they were, and as the KGB continued right on into service, under a new name, serving the new regime, the contacts largely just stayed there. If you watch The Americans you might charmingly believe that the sleeper agents just became normal people when the USSR fell, but it almost certain did not.
Vladimir Putin was a loyal member of the KGB.
At any one point in history its' been difficult to tell what the goal of any Russian government is. Russian is, as Churchill noted, "a mystery wrapped inside of an enigma". A lot of the time, however, the goals of the Russian government are simply to be a menace to everyone else. Russia has preserved a culture of political paranoia that is only matched by the one that Germany had prior to 1945. Believing that everyone else is out to get them, they seek to disrupt everyone else.
Only a fool would believe that the KGB didn't have plans to massively disrupt Western governments by any means possible. People like to imagine that means blowing things up and the like, and no doubt those sorts of plans existed. But to get to that point would have been regarded as a Soviet foreign intelligence service failure. Before ever getting there, influencing politics and disrupting political processes would have been resorted to. They probably in fact were more often than we might like to imagine.
Well, in actuality we don't have to imagine it to much, as we can read the Venona Files.
More on that in a moment.
Putin has stepped right into the role that Brezhnev and the like occupied in earlier eras. He's not a Communist, apparently, but he's not a trustworthy nice guy either. And its very clear that a principal go of his is to disrupt the US.
And the evidence is overwhelming he's doing it.
And Qanon is Russian work.
If it wasn't originally, and my guess is that it actually was, it is now.
Now the book above.
The book pictured above is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, one of the most anti Semitic lies ever perpetuated on the Earth. It came out of Imperial Russia prior to the Russo Japanese War and prior to the 1905 Revolution, and spread. The best evidence is that it wasn't a product of the Imperial Russian secret service, but people have speculated about that in the past. It certainly circulated in Russian circles before breaking out in the West. Henry Ford paid to have copies made of it and to have them distributed.
The lies it tells about the Jews are lurid and absurd, but there are still people who believe them.
And here's the interesting part. . . those lies read a lot like what Qanon is putting out now.
Too much alike, in fact, for that to be mere coincidence.
While the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are absurd, the lesson the Russians would have learned about them is that distributing an absurdity in a free society works. It worked with this racist tract from the early 20th Century, why wouldn't it work again.
Indeed, it's easier to distribute absurdities like this now, than it was in the early 20th Century. Then you had to find somebody to print them and distribute them. Now all you have to do is to get it on the net.
And the Russians are proven masters of that.
And that's what's going on here. Qanon is almost certainly one of the variety of Russian efforts designed to destabilize Western democracies. It's likely an official effort of Russian state security, and it probably mostly comes out of troll farms within the boundaries of the former Russian Empire, but it likely also has some help in some ways from sleeper agents who where here before 1990 and still are.
So now, in 2021, this effort not only had some role in persuading some voters in the 2016 election (denying this is now acting contrary to the facts), but it set up the atmosphere for an insurrection last week. And not only that, the theories have been tolerated to the point of near endorsement by the sitting President of the United States. The country looks pathetic as a result.
So what can be done about this?
Well, something has to be done. You'd think that after last week people would have woken up on this but there are plenty who have not. This morning (January 11) in checking Twitter you can find that "Insurrection Act" is trending and that some now believe its been invoked and the world is going to be shocked by an arrest of Joe Biden on January 20, and that all the facts will come tumbling forth.
That's not going to happen.
The facts have come tumbling forth. There's nothing there at all and a lot of people have been duped. But the Protocols of the Elders of Zion duped a lot of people and there are still people who believe them.
Something definitely needs to be done, and right away. Part of that involves prosecuting and holding to account those who set things up for last week, and that includes politicians who endorsed these things for their own cynically self serving reasons. Some of the newly elected to Congress are so deluded as to probably believe the lies they've been telling, but very few are. Being able to tell them and get away with it is not an option.
And something needs to be done about the underlying root cause of all of this, and quickly.
A modern democracy can't carry on with a large percentage of people believing in obvious deception, no matter what the source.
And the party's ultimately responsible need to be revealed, and soon.
The Venona files were compiled as early as the 1940s, but the government didn't release them until after 1990. There were reasons for that, but it did mean that many of the guilty escaped punishment for being complicit with Soviet espionage, and it further meant that for fifty years deceptive covers about some individuals who were involved with it were allowed to circulate. I can't help but feel that the Federal Government knows a lot about Qanon right now. We don't have the luxury of fifty years this time. And efforts like this track back to somebody, or somebodies, and they need to pay some price for that.
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Did we discuss Merrick Garland in 2016?
Yes, we did.
So what did we have to say?
Here's our first entry:
Monday, March 14, 2016
Monday at the Bar: Down to three potential Supreme Court nominees
While the Senate leadership has indicated that it intends to stick to its guns and refuse to consider any pick prior to the next President taking office it has to be the case that the election, which has taken an unpredicted and odd course, may start to change some minds. Most Republican Senators are undoubtedly of the view that a Trump nomination will go down to defeat against Hillary Clinton in the fall and everyone is aware that a Clinton nominee will be much more liberal than any of these three. Backing down on their pledge not to consider a nominee would look bad, but the impact would not be as bad as suffering with a liberal appointee in the next Congress.
Obviously, by that time, the Republican leadership in the Senate had already issued its pledge not to consider President Obama's nominee.
A few weeks had passed, by that time, since Justice Scalia had died. But it was only March and much of 2016 was left to go. Things were developing in the race, however, as our next entry pointed out.
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Merrick Garland nominated to the Supreme Court
I thought, at the time, as is clear that the gamble the GOP was making in not taking up Merrick Garland's nomination was really risky. As it turned out, it was brilliant strategically. By waiting President Obama out, the Republicans were able to secure a conservative replacement for Justice Scalia, although certainly not one of his intellectual weight. It was a gamble that paid off for them. It's essentially the same gamble that Ruth Bader Ginsburg made in the latter stages of President Obama's second term, betting on a Democratic administration, which didn't pay off.
What I also thought, but which I didn't put down in these posts, but might have elsewhere, is that it was Constitutionally questionable for the Senate not to take up the Garland nomination. The Senate's job is to "advise and consent". It didn't do that.
Indeed, in retrospect, Democrats could have filed suit and sought a Writ of Mandamus requiring the Senate to hold hearings. But it would have been to no avail. All that would have occured, had they won, was to convene hearings sometime that Summer which would have lead, I suspect, to a non confirmation. That would have been quite politically awkward for the GOP, and it might have had the impact of swinging the election to the Democrats.
Contrary to what people seem to believe, things like this aren't that unusual. I've known one well qualified nominee to the Federal bench who didn't get on as the Senate didn't take up his nomination for political reasons. Granted, that wasn't to the Supreme Court, but to a Federal District Court, but nonetheless these things occur. They simply waited that nominees President out until there was a new one. That's exactly what the Republicans did, very openly, in 2016.
It doesn't appear that they'll do that here, but the Democrats don't really have a good argument that the GOP should wait. In 2016 they argued against it. There's no Constitutional requirement that waiting be done.
The real question, therefore, is whether lifetime appointments of this type make sense any longer. The better evidence is that they don't.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Blog Mirror: The Winter of ’16-17
The Winter of ’16-17
Monday, February 13, 2017
Today In Wyoming's History: February 13, 2016. Justice Scalia passed.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 13:The full entry appears there. Or here, if you follow the link below the link, as it was originally posted here and then linked on to our other site.
2016 Antonin Scalia passes on.
So, an entire year has gone by, with lots of drama associated with it. And the drama just keeps on keeping on, it seems.
Both of the nominees to fill this position have been good justices. The GOP held up President Obama's nominee, however, as they correctly surmised (probably) that approving that nominee would tilt the court to the left for decades. It was quite a gamble on their part, but they read things correctly and were not only not punished at the polls for their actions, but probably gained a significant number of votes by doing it. Democrats have cried foul but in reality not approving Supreme Court nominees is not novel, and indeed treating them very badly isn't novel either.
Now the Democrats are threatening to hold up President Trump's nominees. But they seemingly fail to grasp that they don't have the votes to do that, they can only delay it. And there's no good reason to believe that achieves anything politically. They ought not to try that, but they likely will.
And so the drama goes on.
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Exercising the 1950 Soviet Option. Democratic blundering just keeps on, keeping on.
So what can Democrats do?
First, they need to make sure that the stolen Supreme Court seat remains at the top of the public’s consciousness. When people hear the name “Neil Gorsuch,” as qualified as he may be, they should associate him with a constitutionally damaging power grab.
Second, Democrats should not weigh this nomination the same way that they’ve weighed previous ones. This one is different. The presumption should be that Gorsuch does not deserve confirmation, because the process that led to his nomination was illegitimate.
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Looking back on '16. . . 2016 and 1916
- CHORUS:
- For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
- CHORUS
- CHORUS
- CHORUS
Let's start with 2016.
And I never in a million years thought that Donald Trump would be nominated. I didn't take him seriously, and then I convinced myself it just wouldn't happen.
Well it sure did.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
2016 exits, and 2017 begins
Tennyson, The Passing of Arthur.“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,And God fulfils himself in many ways,Lest one good custom should corrupt the world
Death didn't stop there, however. Just before my mother died, her brother Mark died. I didn't really know Mark and I'm not sure if I ever met him. He was the sibling of my mother's that I knew the least about. She was quite close to her brothers and sisters but for whatever reason Mark is one that I just heard less about. I only talked to him once in recent years and at that time it was quite clear that he was very confused, not a good sign, so old age was catching up with him. My mother, in a state of decline, reacted not at all to it really, which I suppose was a good thing.
Locally, just as my mother started to decline one of the male relatives in my extended family did as well. He was really the last of my father's generation or near generation of my collection of local male relatives left alive. My Uncle Bob died some time ago as had my Uncle Bill. My Uncle Frank is very much alive be he is quite a bit younger than my father. Joe was a contemporary of Bill's and like him a World War Two veteran. With him, it seems to me, the last of the giants of my youth have passed on and those of us left behind can hardly measure up to them.
As if that wasn't enough two more death visitations hit before the year ended, indeed within the last few weeks. One was the death of the husband of a high school colleague of mine. This is the second time she's lost a husband. This one passed when a blood clot developed following knee surgery, and therefore it was unanticipated. A true tragedy that left her with two distraught teenage daughters.
The second was the odd news that my grandmother's estate in Quebec is winding down. It's been open since the 1970s. That seems nearly impossible in the American context but it had something to do with providing money from the sale of her house in Montreal to support an uncle in a nursing home. He's still in the nursing home so something must have been worked out, but its odd to think of. This year, as my mother became increasingly ill, she was asking about her own mother and if she was still alive. Now, in an odd way, her mother's estate has come back to visit us after her daughter passed on, the third of her daughters to do so.
Anyhow, that was a bad deal but I have a lot of vehicles and so it wasn't a huge inconvenience when I was down to my Jeep, which I drive most days anyhow.
This was totally unanticipated and not a very pleasant experience. Fortunately insurance paid for a lot of the work. Thank goodness for insurance.
And then there was politics.
Friday, December 23, 2016
The Massive Decline in Violence (shout out to 100 Years Ago Today Subreddit)
Recently I've been running 1916 is century delayed real time so often that a person could be excused for thinking it was the 1916 day by day blog, or something like that, but it isn't. I've been doing that do the centennial of the Punitive Expedition. Once that story basically concludes the near day by day entries will slow down as well, to the likely relief of everyone who stops in here, but some of the newly added features that are basically slice of life type entries will likely keep on keeping on, maybe.
Anyhow, in keeping with this, I've found that there are a couple of other sites that run 1916 in delayed real time, one of which is Reddit's 100 Years Ago Subreddit. I like it, and I post quite a few of the entries here that are posted on the centennial of their happening as links there. But I read those entries over there was well.
Recently one of the moderators of that Subreddit posted an end of the year item noting that the murder rate in 1916 in the US was 145% of today's.
145%.
Now, this shouldn't surprise the readers here, but I still wonder to what degree we fail to appreciate that violence has really declined. Massively, in fact.
We have run a lot of items on this before, including, Violent society? andPeculiarized violence and American society. Looking at root causes, and not instrumentalities. So this should not be a surprise to readers here. But what an impressive statistic.
And how interesting in terms of how we look at the world we live in. In terms of violence, in spite of spectacular examples to the contrary, this is about the best era there is to live in, unless of course you are a victim, in which case, no doubt, that's no comfort at all.
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Today In Wyoming's History: December 19: A Very Blustery Day
2016 A recorded gust of wind reached 88 mph on the base of Casper Mountain, a new record 14 mph higher than any previously recorded gust in that location. Clark Wyoming reported a blast of 108 mph. It was a very blustery day.