Chait and Flynn and the Post oh my!

SATURDAY, MAY 30, 2020

The end of competent journalism:
We've read and seen some horrible journalism in the past 24 hours.

For one example, consider this lengthy front-page report in today's Washington Post. More specifically, consider two of the various things you never learn about the fatal police shooting incident with which the report begins:

Did the late Wayne Reyes have a shotgun with him when he was shot and killed? Also, had he in fact "stabbed his girlfriend and another friend" in the minutes, or perhaps in the hour, before he was shot and killed?

Despite the length of this front-page report, you're never told such things. We'd give this report a failing grade, except as an example of unfortunate story-shaping.

We're going to make a confession today. Like you, we've never been a police officer.

Unlike Jeronimo Yanez (see Post report); unlike Mohamed Noor (see Post report); we've never been dispatched, in the dead of the night, to police an incident in which a gun eventually appeared, or in which a sexual assault was said to have occurred right out in the street.

We've never had to do that! For that reason, we're slow to judge people who are required to do such things. We ourselves have never made the brave, dead-of-night decision, as everyone else has done.

It's hard to imagine any excuse for Derek Chauvin's recent conduct. He's been charged with murder and with manslaughter, and the conduct in which he engaged does in fact seem to have been deranged and depraved.

(How do people end up that way? We've wondered about that all week. So far, there's been little background reporting.)

In other cases involving police officers, we're inclined to be slower to judge. Luckily, everyone else is willing to leap, and reporters like Bailey and Berman are prepared to sift the information we're given about various events.

That front-page report is terrible work, but it's also a sign of the times. As a matter of anthropology, it may be the best our species can be expected to do. It may be that, at times ;like these, we human beings are hard-wired to novelize such reports.

A second report, from the Post's page A2, is shorter and more straightforward. Now that transcripts have been released, it reports what Michael Flynn said to Russkie ambassador Kislyak in December 2016.

This second, shorter report was written by Barrett and Miller, a pair of experienced, top-level reporters. Barrett and Miller do not report that Flynn was "undermining" the Obama administration's policy on sanctions. (In the report which appears in our hard-copy Post, the word does not appear.)

Jonathan Chait does make that claim. As he does, we weep for the species.

In the end, of course, it all depends on what the meaning of "undermine" is. Chait is certain that "undermining" occurred. He says so in this paragraph:
CHAIT (5/29/20): The transcripts today quote Flynn telling Kislyak, “Do not, do not uh, allow this (Obama) administration to box us in, right now, okay?” If that does not constitute “undermin[ing] the outgoing administration’s policy,” what does?
What would have constituted undermining the policy? Frankly, we're not sure.

The outgoing Obama administration had three more weeks to serve. The incoming Trump administration was going to have every right to adopt a different sanctions policy.

The existing policy stayed in effect right through inaugural day. On that day, President Trump addressed the largest, most admiring crowd in solar system history.

Nothing Flynn said to the Russkie affected, or could have affected, the continuing operation of the Obama policy until such time as Obama was no longer president. We have no idea what it means to say that Flynn "undermined" that policy, nor does Chait, full of certainty, bother to explain why he says it did.

By way of contrast:

In the fall of 1968, President Johnson may have been on the verge of a peace deal with the North Vietnamese.

By common understanding, Candidate Richard M. Nixon tried to keep a peace deal from happening. So it says in this factually accurate New York Times news report:
BAKER (1/2/17): Richard M. Nixon told an aide that they should find a way to secretly “monkey wrench” peace talks in Vietnam in the waning days of the 1968 campaign for fear that progress toward ending the war would hurt his chances for the presidency, according to newly discovered notes.

In a telephone conversation with H. R. Haldeman, who would go on to become White House chief of staff, Nixon gave instructions that a friendly intermediary should keep “working on” South Vietnamese leaders to persuade them not to agree to a deal before the election, according to the notes, taken by Mr. Haldeman.

The Nixon campaign’s clandestine effort to thwart President Lyndon B. Johnson’s peace initiative that fall has long been a source of controversy and scholarship. Ample evidence has emerged documenting the involvement of Nixon’s campaign. But Mr. Haldeman’s notes appear to confirm longstanding suspicions that Nixon himself was directly involved, despite his later denials.
It's easy to see why someone would say that Nixon and/or the Nixon campaign sought to undermine Johnson's possible peace deal. For all we know, they may have kept it from happening!

But in what way did Flynn's remarks to the Russkie undermine the Obama policy? To this day, we have no idea—nor does Chait attempt to explain. To Chait, it's just blindingly obvious!

So it tends to go at highly tribal times such as these. We were similarly stunned, but also dismayed, by the peculiar way this early report from Minneapolis ended, a report about the use of tear gas.

Unlike everyone else, we've never been a police officer. But we think we can answer the following questions, at least on a provisional basis:

Why might a police department use tear gas in a situation where arson and looting were occurring? Also, why might a police department decline to use tear gas in a situation where as far as we know, for better or worse, no crimes were being committed?

Despite our lack of experience, we think we can answer those questions! At New York magazine, but also in this remarkable piece at Slate, these behaviors indicate the existence of preferential racist behavior on the part of police.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep—but our species isn't, and never was, "the rational animal."

According to reams of decorated top major anthropologists, man (sic) was always the tribal animal. Our war-inclined species was always wired to generate stories which favor the clan or the tribe.

This is now happening all over "the news." It's even happening Over Here, among the admittedly good smart brilliant thoughtful unbiased humans.

How did we ever make it this far? For all their brilliance and erudition, despondent major anthropologists are completely unable to say.

Postponed today: The decline of the once seminal book, The Family of Man (sic).

Also, postponed again: What did Rachel Maddow say? On that same night, Adam Schiff!

The Post, in print and online: The online version of the Post's report about Flynn includes material in which an "analyst" seems to say that Flynn's phone calls did undermine the Obama policy. The professor in question doesn't explain why he uses that term.

In the report which appears in our print edition, the word (and the analyst) never appear. The report appears on page A2 of our hard-copy Post.

The online report is longer. On the other hand, it isn't included on the list of reports you access by clicking the link, "Today's print stories."

Online, the report is longer—but you have to hunt it down!

73 comments:

  1. "Did the late Wayne Reyes have a shotgun with him when he was shot and killed? Also, had he in fact "stabbed his girlfriend and another friend" in the minutes, or perhaps in the hour, before he was shot and killed?"

    The point is that when police shot Reyes, he didn't get a trial to determine his guilt or innocence on any other charges. He was summarily executed.

    The news report cannot possibly determine whether Reyes was innocent or guilty of anything police may have suspected him of when they approached his truck and shot him.

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  2. This business of Somerby's about whether Flynn undermined Obama's policy is a red herring. It is forbidden for individuals to interfere in foreign policy because of the potential for undermining official government activities. Flynn wasn't privy to Obama's policy. Thus his interference could have done damage. What he did was illegal, wrong, and shouldn't have occurred.

    It doesn't matter whether he actually said anything that derailed Obama. It matters that he was interfering in foreign policy. It matters that he did something illegal and then lied about it to the FBI.

    But Somerby raises the issue of whether he actually derailed or not. That is unknowable, but it is also irrelevant. Raising this point constitutes a defense of Flynn and support for Trump because it plants the idea that Flynn did nothing wrong (if he didn't actually derail). And that is untrue.

    All under the guise that Somerby is actually concerned about Chait's conclusion as an example of journalistic malfeasance so heinous that it requires an essay that appears to vindicate Flynn.

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    Replies
    1. Illegal under what law?

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    2. Bracket,
      You'll be supporting the looters in Minnesota, correct?
      You can't charge someone with looting a business, when hedge funds loot businesses 52 weeks a year.
      Just as you can't charge Flynn with breaking a law we never enforce.

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    3. Flynn lied to the FBI

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    4. The Logan Act isn't a serious charge. No one has ever been charged with it in hundreds of years and it would never stand up in court. The Logan Act is only used to further propagandize you.

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    5. As I said, lobbying without registering as an agent of a foreign government is a crime, so is lying to the FBI, and so is violating the Logan Act by undermining public policy by negotiating with a foreign government without authority. Flynn entered a guilty plea to this stuff as part of a plea deal and he was not prosecuted for other crimes in exchange. There is no question that he is guilty of this and other stuff (not prosecuted).

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    6. Looting businesses isn't a serious charge.
      Hedge funds loot businesses every day, and no one is ever charged with it.
      Charging protesters for looting a business is used only to further propagandize you in service to white supremacy.

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    7. Trump and his offspring and in-laws loot the US Treasury every single day. Crickets...

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    8. You have to be careful. You have to learn your lesson from the "I believe her "cause célèbre" because it will come back and bite you in the ass in the same way.

      In other words, if Biden wins the election in 2020, no one who he is associated with would be allowed to have any contact with any government about what they intend to do until the hour Biden is inaugurated. That is impossible. Yet they will be charged with crimes under the logic (or lack thereof) you are employing now.

      The same with registering as a foreign agent. You have to decide if you really want to go there. Of course not you. You are just rank-and-file. But you will see why the corporate propagandists who control what you think won't go there they because they know the Logan Act as a joke, registering as a foreign agent is something that both parties do as is lying to the FBI.

      FBI agent McCabe for instance was caught lying to the FBI. Now he's a commentator on CNN. Are you calling for him to be prosecuted?

      But believe what you want to believe.

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    9. @Bracket
      And your position would mean that it would be perfectly OK for Biden’s campaign to collude with China to dig up dirt on Trump and to interfere in our election to help Biden win. You need to think about the ramifications of your own position.

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    10. I see nothing wrong with China creating COVID-19 in a lab, and using it to decimate the US economy to help Biden win the election. I realize many people who have been propagandized by the deep state disagree with me, but they'll figure it out sooner or later.

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  3. At the end of his essay, after complaining that Chait has no basis for saying that Flynn undermined Obama's policy, Somerby says this:

    "The online version of the Post's report about Flynn includes material in which an "analyst" seems to say that Flynn's phone calls did undermine the Obama policy. The professor in question doesn't explain why he uses that term."

    A more careful essayist would go back and revise his essay to correct for this new information. Somerby doesn't bother, despite calling others "slackers" for not putting up show transcripts quickly enough.

    If the point of today's essay were to complain that reporters draw conclusions without providing their evidence, this expert analysis would be pretty important. But I believe Somerby is using these columns to support conservative talking points -- one of which is that Flynn did nothing wrong. So Somerby attacks Chait in order to vindicate Flynn, then doesn't walk his own attack back after hearing that at least one expert is reported in that same article as saying that Flynn did indeed undermine Obama's policy.

    But Somerby doesn't address that expert supporting Chait because his goal was already accomplished -- exonerating Flynn. The rest is window-dressing. And this is how we know what Somerby's actual motives are. It cannot be honesty and fairness in reporting since he shows none of that when writing his own pieces.

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  4. Isn't it cute how Somerby manages to sow doubt about whether police overreact against minorities while repeatedly stating that he has no experience as a cop. He clearly has no experience as a member of a minority group either but he doesn't say that. Instead he questions the daughter's account of the Reyes shooting. Thus he leaves open the door that police may have been justified, while not similarly contemplating whether Reyes was unjustly shot.

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  5. This is what a liberal/progressive sounds like:

    "Unlike Jeronimo Yanez (see Post report); unlike Mohamed Noor (see Post report); we've never been dispatched, in the dead of the night, to police an incident in which a gun eventually appeared, or in which a sexual assault was said to have occurred right out in the street." --- Joe Biden

    What does Somerby sound like? He imagines what it is like to be a police officer, wearing body armor and armed to the teeth, with similarly armed coworkers, all approaching a single car containing a man suspected to have been in a domestic knife fight. He says he's never been in that situation, so who is he to judge whether firing 46 bullets into the car (because there might have been a shotgun) is justified or not. He identifies with the cops and assumes the worst from the suspects (complaining when the reports don't include all of their misdeeds, because there surely must have been some serious shit for the cops to have reacted so violently).

    This is what conservatives say after a police shooting or killing. They look for reasons to justify the police officer. They assume the victim deserved to be killed (even for crimes that do not have capital sentences) without trial much less conviction. He is one step away from saying "serves them right" and now they're looting, which proves they deserved to be treated violently after all.

    Whatever Somerby is, he is no liberal.

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    1. Sorry, included the wrong quote. Biden actually said:

      "Every day, African-Americans go about their lives with constant anxiety and trauma, wondering who will be next. Imagine if every time your husband or son, wife or daughter left the house, you feared for their safety from bad actors and bad police. Imagine if you had to have that talk with your child about not asserting your rights, taking the abuse handed out to them so, just so they can make it home. Imagine having police called on you just for sitting in Starbucks or renting an Airbnb or watching birds. This is the norm black people in this country deal with. They don’t have to imagine it. The anger and frustration and the exhaustion is undeniable."

      The quote is Somerby's statement.

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  6. “Did the late Wayne Reyes have a shotgun with him when he was shot and killed?...Despite the length of this front-page report, you're never told such things.”

    Good grief.

    From the report:

    “While the department said Reyes had exited the car with his gun, Leanne Reyes says the blurry video she watched, apparently captured from a dashboard camera of a responding officer’s car, did not show her father outside the vehicle until he had been shot.”

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  7. “The online version of the Post's report about Flynn includes material in which an "analyst" seems to say that Flynn's phone calls did undermine the Obama policy. The professor in question doesn't explain why he uses that term.”

    In the report (which Somerby doesn’t link to), the analyst says this:

    “Here, Flynn working in coordination with the Trump transition team was undermining the very penalty imposed for the Russian attempt to interfere in the presidential election,”

    The sanctions were imposed for interfering in the election, interference which benefited Trump. Flynn was saying to the ambassador “no biggie; we will remove the sanctions.” Thus, the point of the sanctions, to punish election interference, was rendered null and void. Election interference henceforward is AOK; that is the signal.

    But Somerby apparently can’t conceive of that. That may be more his failure than the analyst’s.

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    1. Election interference is A Ok. Why would it not be? You really want to go there? Ie the US interferes with far more elections that Russia, often with the highest degree of violence and cynicism. You do understand the US are the world's kings of election interference?

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    2. Exactly, Bracket. Why would it not be? Unfortunately, Donald J Chickenshit, Acting President, is too much of worm to come right out and say it publicly - "thank you, Vlad for committing criminal acts against one of the 2 major political parties in my country (hehe), appreciate the help. Anything I can do for you, you cute little autocratic killer? Need any money laundered? You'll have to talk to one of my idiot sons about that now."

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    3. Trump keeps crying about the Chinese virus. Our President must have been propagandized by the deep state, to think something is untoward about China sending the virus here to help Biden win the election.

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    4. The US does it all the time, more than any other country.

      From now on expect Russia to interfere..they always have and the always will just like we always have interfered in other elections and always will.

      None of this is new or unexpected or unusual if you understand history. Unfortunately many don't and buy into a false good guy bad guy comic book version of the interference.

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    5. Do you think that two wrongs make a right?

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    6. Bracket, what they did in 2016 was totally unprecedented. And when is it alright for the President to give the Russian oligarchs a handjob for doing it to us? That's what seriously bothers me. But I understand your irrational hatred for Secretary Clinton obliges you to laugh it all off, traitor.

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    7. I'm just not shocked that Trump wouldn't react as if the interference was isolated and unusual.

      If you think election interference is wrong, there are much bigger examples than Russia 2020.

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    8. It was unusual, Bracket. Literally unprecedented.0

      ***
      5/ interfering in the election tells the real story, which is that that assistance was requested by the incoming President, that it was given, that the Trump campaign at the very highest levels was collaborating with a hostile foreign power to win the US election.
      @joshtpm
      ***

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    9. The lootings are good example of the shortcomings of the Democratic party and illustrate how white liberal Hillary supporters are more dangerous to black people than the KKK. I know that may shock you mm but you have to remember you are a very stupid and naive person.

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    10. Voting for Biden is pretty much the same thing as putting your knee on a black man's neck and killing him. You realize that don't you? That is what Van Jones was trying to say.

      It's too late to claim naivety that the 2 party system keeps a constant boot on the the throat of poor blacks.

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    11. Wait a minute, you double talking troll. Pick a fucking lane, is it just normal routine everyday election shenanigans that everyone does, or are you denying that trump asked for help, received help and has been trying to reward Vlad ever since? You guys can't keep your bullshit straight.

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    12. I'm denying this " trump asked for help, received help and has been trying to reward Vlad ever since?"

      Really, how stupid are you mm? My God.

      I'm saying it was normal election shenanigans.

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    13. I see your problem now, Bracket, you're an imbecile who doesn't understand the meaning of the word "unprecedented".

      Are you denying he betrayed our Kurdish allies and handed Syria off to Russia? Are you denying that Trump has not been enforcing the sanctions imposed on Russia? Are you denying that Trump has been lobbying hard to have Russia reinstated in the G7? Are you denying that Trump has systematically been undermining our Nato alliance just as Putin wants to see?
      Are you denying that Trump invited Russian thugs into the oval office and revealed classified information while laughing at his just recent firing of FBI Director Comey? Are you denying that Trump has secret one on one meetings with Putin and destroys any record of what was discussed? Are you denying that Trump traitorously defended Putin in Helsinki while denying the undeniable evidence that our National Intelligence provided him?

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    14. Yes, your facts are wrong, overblown and misleading and so dumb! It's sad how you are propagandized and so naive. You'll be really mad if ulyou ever realize the stupid things they put in your head. It's bad for Democrats.

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    15. It's precedented in 2016. Look at Israel's interference and the rewards Trump has showered on them.

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    16. I'm starting to understand this whole situation. People like mm and Rachel Maddow grew up in the 80s watching Rambo movies where the Russians are portrayed in the Cold War trope of some kind of monolithic, unstoppable antagonist but these people forgot the part or sat out the part where Russia totally fell apart.

      Russia is not even in the top 10 of world economies. Canada, is more powerful than Russia. Russia, is nothing. Now.

      But in a brilliant move of propaganda, Clinton and the CIA propped up this Russian interference story, this cold war Russia is the bad guy trope which people like mm totally bought into. They had not kept up with the times or with Russia's true demise. They still had in their brains this old Hollywood trope of Russia. And they still do!

      Brilliant move by Clinton. But really bad for the country as a whole overall long-term.

      mm Russia - whatever, it's boring and not really important, the more interesting topic to me is that voting for Biden is the same as putting your knee on a black man's throat and killing him. It's more interesting to talk about how white Hillary Clinton supporters are more dangerous to blacks than the KKK. You probably blissfully ignorant of that fact too.

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    17. Dear Hillary, your 'interference' bullshit fell apart months ago, when colonel Klink's case against Concord Management - the only case actually tested in the court system - was dropped.

      There was a puff, and it disappeared. Bye-bye 'interference'. But of course not for you, Hillaryland.

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    18. The best thing that ever happened to Trump was Hillary supporters. They're the gift that keeps on giving.

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    19. The best thing that ever happened to Trump was running for President in a country that supports white supremacy.

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    20. 8:27

      I'm not saying it.

      That's a quote from Van Jones, black person. And he's right. I can explain to you why.

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    21. Hillary Clinton supporters are more dangerous to blacks than the KKK.

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    22. Voting for Joe Biden is the same as killing an innocent black man in the street in broad daylight. Biden won't do anything to change the ghetto streets. Status Quo Biden. A vote for him is a vote to kill blacks.

      I'm voting for him btw. But let's be honest about what that vote means.

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    23. Who uses the word "ghetto" these days?

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    24. Makes sense that comment coming from a white Hillary supporter. You're an expert at using race words as weapons and caring about blacks only when it's politically convenient.

      Call it what you want Biden has no intention of changing life for the people there.

      We need to change.

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    25. That is the perfect question from a white Clinton supporter.

      Let's not focus on the core issues. Let's focus on the racist guy who used the wrong word.

      Let's stay as far away from the primary, core issues as possible.

      Anyway, you guys are so clueless on Russia, I can't expect you to be anywhere close on race. My only advice would be listen to black people.

      They don't want or need your help. They know you are frauds. They also know that you don't know you are frauds. And I know that you don't know you are frauds. So there's no point in discussing it further now. Just listen to them. If you're capable.

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    26. First thing they teach in Kindergarten is to lie to the FBI twice about things that are typical and mundane.
      Have you people forgotten the alphabet too.

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    27. Bracket,
      Your common sense replies excusing treason against the United States of America needs more "we liberals" sprinkled in.

      Delete
    28. Lying to the FBI is as American as baseball, apple pie, and shooting a police officer.

      Delete
  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. ...as for the the Flynn-Kislyak affair, dear Bob, I read the transcripts.

    Cynic that I am, I was amazed how good the conversations were. How decent.

    And now, will you, dear Bob, address the reason why your Nazi-like liberal cult destroyed Mr Flynn's life?

    ...wait, scratch that, dear Bob, forget Mr Flynn. Explain why your Nazi-like hate-mongering war-craving liberal cult destroyed any hope for constructive mutual cooperation with the Russian Federation in world affairs.

    ...or, feel free to keep whining endlessly about your zombie yellow press making fun of your Demigod Algore's suits, dear Bob.

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    Replies
    1. Who actually destroyed Mr Flynn's life?

      Of course the sad fact of the matter is Donald J Chickenshit, Acting President, is the only one who destroyed this traitor's life. Chickenshit is too much of a pathetic coward to confess that he ordered Flynn to relay his messages to Uncle Vlad, because Chickenshit is a foul foul excuse for a human, and decided to throw Flynn under the bus, firing him and then allowing Flynn to twist in the wind for years spending a fortune on lawyers and having his reputation wrecked. Quite a stand up guy, your hero Donald J Chickenshit is, eh?

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    2. "Who actually destroyed Mr Flynn's life?"

      Why, you know it just as well as I do, dear Hillary: your liberal zombie cult. Its loyal henchmen in the security apparatus. It's all well documented.

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    3. It's OK, zombie trumpbot. I understand it is horrifying and humiliating to have to confront the cold hard reality that your hero is a low rent scum bag coward punk too scared of his own shadow to stand up like a man and take responsibility for destroying Flynn's life. I know you have no choice but to continue to spread your manure lest you find yourself flying out some 10th floor window in the eastern Ukraine.

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    4. Yawn. Please try to spice your word-salads up a bit, dear Hillary. Add some perverted sexual shit, like you used to.

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    5. Nice going Melania, you tell him.

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    6. Mao,
      We've been over this a hundred times. I am the rubber, and YOU are the glue.

      Delete
  10. Fully one-third of the 60 comments are by a Russian Troll pretending to be a BernieBro.

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  11. If you assume the Obama administration aimed to punish Russia for interfering in the election and to adopt a more hostile posture toward Putin's regime moving forward, then Flynn's call "undermined" that goal by promising that incoming officials would take a less adversarial stance; this, however, required Russia refrain from retaliating against Obama's moves because that would "box [Trump] in", preventing any rapprochement. This interference blunted (or "undermined") the intended effect of Obama's policy.

    Can Trump pursue any desired relationship to Russia? Yes, but he can do this on behalf of the United States only while in office. Obama may have wanted to "box [Trump] in" to prevent rewarding Russia's attack on our democracy, which, because Trump welcomed Putin's support, Obama may have assumed Trump would do. As president, Obama had the prerogative to set foreign policy on whatever timeframe, even into the future; as a private citizen, Flynn — albeit as incoming NSA — did not.

    Somerby puts his thumb on the scales by looking only at what actually happened and by neglecting Putin's (likely) response, which would have altered US–Russia relations and which did not occur. As Bob points out, Obama had three weeks to conduct foreign policy, but Flynn "undermined" his authority and freedom of action by influencing Russia and unknowably changing the events of that period.

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    Replies
    1. "As president, Obama had the prerogative to set foreign policy on whatever time"

      No, dear dembot. The only prerogative Barry the Demigod had at that point was to facilitate a smooth transition to the newly elected administration.

      Messing up its priorities, not to mention setting up an outright coup run by security services, certainly wasn't his prerogative.

      In fact, if anything does constitute an "attack on our democracy", that is it, what Barry the Demigod and the liberal cult did is. Plain and simple.

      Delete
  12. The president elect has as much right to signal his policy prerogatives as the outgoing president has to set his druthers in ways that might "box in" the incoming administration.

    In such a scenario, the term "undermine" would mean the election of a presidential candidate with differing policy views than the incumbent.

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    1. But Donald J Chickenshit, Acting President, denies to this day that he was doing that through his messenger boy traitor Flynn. And then he fired Flynn to cover his fat cowardly ass and left Flynn twisting in the wind. We keep coming back to that. What a tangled web, eh Dixie?

      That is, Mueller wasn’t just investigating whether Trump was friendly to Russia because he was friendly to Russia or whether he was friendly to Russia out of tacit acknowledgement that Russia had helped him.

      Mueller was also investigating (and parts of DOJ may still be investigating) whether Trump entered into one or more quid pro quos in which he accepted help getting elected in exchange for implicit or explicit pay-offs later.

      Whether or not Mueller proved a quid pro quo (and there are aspects of this that remain ongoing, or recently were ongoing before Barr’s latest efforts to undermine them), that was an obvious, legitimate topic for investigation after a campaign advisor got approached about Russia’s help in April and after Trump asked Russia for help in the same press appearance where he offered to recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

      That’s what FBI’s investigation ultimately became. That’s the question the answer to which Flynn’s lies about consulting with Mar-a-Lago have obscured. That is the part of the investigation that Flynn’s lies had a material impact on.

      Bill Barr is saying it was illegitimate for the FBI to investigate whether the incoming President engaged in a quid pro quo to get elected and therefore Flynn’s lies that hid key details needed to answer that question are not material to any investigation that FBI should be engaging in.

      And he’s saying it just before campaign season begins again in earnest.

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    2. Dear Hillary,
      this is not 1954. Your and your dembot comrades' racist hatred for Evil Russkies does not impress anyone outside the usual circle of scumbag loyalists of your hate-mongering zombie cult.

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    3. "MAGA loves the black people"

      Me, I am much more concerned about the ethnic Russians in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine. We all have our causes.

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    4. Tsk. Yes, protocol, dear Hillary. You must be dying of jealousy.

      It's okay, it could be you next time, my dear. You have 0.3% probability.

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    5. Protocol!!!!! Bwahahaha, hitting the vodka a little early, eh?

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    6. Whoa, the day after Pentecost, and you're still speaking in tongues, dear Hillary?

      We're so happy the Holy Spirit finally descended on you, my dear. It'll all be different now.

      Delete
  13. The FBI had investigated Flynn and were set to close Crossfire Razor when Peter Strzok stopped them, had Flynn reinterviewed and later rewrote the 302 form detailing the interview.

    It’s forever Groundhog Day for you now, mm. You wake up every morning thinking that you’ve seen Trump’s shadow, but it’s only one cast by your shatterproof mug, set out by the psych ward attendants.

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    1. Hey, Dixie, I don't know who you're responding to but you sure as hell are ignoring this.

      But Donald J Chickenshit, Acting President, denies to this day that he was doing that through his messenger boy traitor Flynn. And then he fired Flynn to cover his fat cowardly ass and left Flynn twisting in the wind. We keep coming back to that. What a tangled web, eh Dixie?


      ***************
      The FBI is opening a full investigation based on the articulable factual basis that reasonably indicates that CROSSFIRE RAZOR (CR) may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security. The FBI is predicating the investigation on predetermined criteria set forth by the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE investigative team based on an assessment of reliable lead information received during the course of the investigation. Specifically, CR has been cited as an adviser to the Trump team on foreign policy issues February 2016; he has ties to various state-affiliated entities of the Russian Federation, as reported by open source information; and he traveled to Russia in December 2015, as reported by open source information. Additionally, CR has an active TS/SCI clearance.

      https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/05/28/on-the-two-ecs-opening-the-investigation-into-mike-flynn/

      ************************

      Delete
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