Trump

whereas the British, I think, could never embrace wild-embraced paranoia like Americans. it's your ironic distance.

even the conspiracies you have are workaday (embezzlement, sex scandals), if sometimes grisly, or the cryptic, gnomic lizard people stuff luka favors

you all just aren't wild-eyed enough. racism, sure, and you're the eternal undisputed champions of classist snobbery, but too staid for wild-eyed abandon

just ain't cricket, as I believe the saying goes

whereas Americans have, do, and will always happily and passionately embrace all manner of sheer raving nonsense - jet fuel can't melt the steel beams in our hearts, 4ever

To thread-drift a bit, you do get some of this on the harder fringes of the Left, but to affirm your point, it plays very uneasily and isn't really taken up by more mainstream discourse. Lots of the Corbynites are always talmbout the big conspiracy against him and, they're right to some degree, people do have it in for him, and he does have a hard time getting positive coverage - but then you get stuff like Corbynite boychild Owen Jones going on about how M15 would take him down and I'm just like "nnnaaah".

DannyL said:

To thread-drift a bit, you do get some of this on the harder fringes of the Left, but to affirm your point, it plays very uneasily and isn't really taken up by more mainstream discourse. Lots of the Corbynites are always talmbout the big conspiracy against him and, they're right to some degree, people do have it in for him, and he does have a hard time getting positive coverage - but then you get stuff like Corbynite boychild Owen Jones going on about how M15 would take him down and I'm just like "nnnaaah".

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lol, brilliant timing Danny.

Secret Scottish-based office led infowars attack on Labour and Jeremy Corbyn
Explosive leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal the organisation’s Integrity Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists.

A secret UK Government-funded infowars unit based in Scotland sent out social media posts attacking Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.

On the surface, the cryptically named Institute for Statecraft is a small charity operating from an old Victorian mill in Fife.

But explosive leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal the organisation’s Integrity Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists.

The “think tank” is supposed to counter Russian online propaganda by forming “clusters” of friendly journalists and “key influencers” throughout Europe who use social media to hit back against disinformation.

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https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/foreign-office-funds-2m-infowars-13707574

padraig (u.s.) said:

I don't disagree - the latest Mueller/SDNY filings are a massive BEGINNING OF THE END sign - but what do you think the endgame looks like, exactly?

for everyone beyond Trump himself, including sons (and ofc Kushner), anything goes at this point

but actual impeachment still seems quite unlikely - House Dems can pass it thru at leisure in upcoming session but they'd never be able to convict in Senate, as both sides know

if it's known to be futile, could wind up seeming petty, and engendering backlash - certainly right-wing press would strive mightily to incite such - for little gain

further, 2020 jockeying already looms large and I'd doubt party wants to expend vast amounts on energy on a doomed impeachment - probably to just maintain pressure with ongoing investigations

seems to me the Damocles sword of criminal charges once he leaves office - a drum Schiff + others are already beating - as hefty club/bargaining tool would be far more useful

I grant, if he somehow does win reelection - only because I never trust the Democrats to not fuck a sure thing up - the political calculus changes

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It's hard to say. Ive always thought he'd go down, that the weight of criminality would be too much, but I agree that it's always been a political calculation.

But looking at the political situation now, Trump has lost the shield of electability. He's now entered the realms of political liability. I think impeachment is now more possible than its ever been - or resignation in return for some kind of deal.

Also, I dont think we've seen a fraction of Mueller's dirt yet. That may yet turn into a landslide that buries even his most vociferous Republican supporters. The rats are jumping ship even now.

Then of course there's the biggest issue, Trump's volatility. Who knows what he might do when the walls close in. He's never been cornered like this before.

So the gamut of outcomes is enormous. Everything from fleeing and seeking asylum, being brought down in a coup after grabbing at the button, defiant resignation after a pardon deal with Pence, going dark for the next two years in a lame duck presidency and then going to jail in 2020 - all the way to both Trump and Pence being taken down by Mueller and Pelosi coming in. Anything is possible, and his insanity seems to make the extreme possibilities more likely, the only thing I would definitively rule out is suicide.

the only thing I would definitively rule out is suicide.

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Pity.

droid said:

lol, brilliant timing Danny.



https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/foreign-office-funds-2m-infowars-13707574

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Woops, yep bad timing on my regard. I did actually read some of this story yesterday but my tired brain not joining the dots. However, the quotes about Milne are from a guy I know and follow (Oz Katerji) and they made no attempt to contact him before running with the story. David Miller, who they did reach out to, is another pro-Assad, pro-Putinist - so jury still out on that story for me. He's (Oz) commented about it a bit on Twitter.

Short thread here:

What you have at most is an organisation receiving government funding which has RTed articles critical of Corbyn.

The not-so-subtle accusation that the writers of these articles worked with this org to do so is not just wrong, it’s downright sinister

Make of it what you will. I could argue it plays into conspiratorial, "the man is out to get us all" narratives.

We've had a massive media campaign against Corbyn, arguably the largest smear campaign in British political history - that much we know is true.

We know the Saudis, the Israelis & the Americans hate him, and in one case at least we know that a foreign government has been funding attacks on him.

The financial & corporate sector are resolutely opposed to him and his policies and are already betting on a run on the banks if he gets in.

With such an incredible amount of political, media and financial opposition I would be shocked to discover that there wasn't an intelligence/security element to the anti-Corbyn campaign - its almost unthinkable in fact.

There's a good piece on the above story here: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/en...witter_cooo9wqtham&utm_campaign=share_twitter

Professor Scott Lucas of the University of Bristol, who runs a website monitoring disinformation, particularly from Russia, told HuffPost UK: ”[Integrity Initiative] crossed a line possibly by tweeting a couple of things about Corbyn and Seamus Milne but is that a hanging offence?”

Lucas suggested the initial hack had been deliberately seized upon by Russian media channels, saying: “In this case I wouldn’t call it disinformation.

“But It’s a classic influence operation because right now there’s an element of truth in what they’re reporting. This is a body funded by the FCO to disseminate information and that specifically, they tweeted against Corbyn. That’s true, they did.

“The best propaganda operations operate with a kernel of truth and the kernel of truth here is those tweets.”

The article goes onto mention that Tweets they've made that are critical of Tory/Russia links weren't picked up on.

I wouldn't be so pigheaded to deny that there may be intelligence agencies involved in briefing against Corbyn. Who knows? It's certainly plausible. But when I see how say, Owen Jones is responding to this story - "THIS IS HOW POWER WORKS" - I just come out in an allergic reaction. The story seems to function for him as confirming a sense of paranoid aggrandisement, that he and others around him, have in spades.

Right so... evidence of a domestic tax payer funded intelligence campaign against the leader of the opposition is in fact... evidence of a Russian propaganda campaign in his favour! Amazing!

Once again:


Owen Jones is right. This IS how power works. Regardless of your opinion of him, its staggeringly naive to assume there isn't a domestic psyops campaign at work against Corbyn.

But the whole point is it isn't evidence - at most, it's a few retweets. The way Jones et al have taken it over is, as I said, paranoid and self-aggrandising.

I can accept that other areas of soft power are working against JC as your links no doubt show. As I said, I'm open to the idea - would like to see harder evidence though.

Well, that's just all we happen to have found out so far isnt it?

I am astonished to see that an 'expert in disinformation' seems more concerned about who is disseminating the story rather than the fact that state security services are engaged in a domestic propaganda campaign, no matter how inconsequential it may seem - that's a very clear line that's been crossed.

Has 'Owen Jones' entered the lexicon as a pejorative term yet?

Something like "Oh don't be such an Owen Jones".

So the NRA funnelled $30 million of Russian money brokered by a Russian spy into the Trump campaign...

Anyone got any idea what this is about?

Reporters in Washington DC are hanging around a courtroom where a sealed grand jury is hearing arguments in a case that may be related to the Mueller investigation. All information about the case is sealed.
The case then went back up to the DC Circuit in October, and that's the case being argued today. So far there's been nothing on the docket that could definitively identify what it is - no lawyer names, for instance
The DC Circuit is about to hear arguments in the sealed grand jury matter. They've sealed not only the courtroom, but the whole floor, so we've been moved away. Haven't recognized anyone going in earlier as being connected to Mueller's office, now we won't be able to see

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Dunno why he's saying that this feast is due to the shutdown, I bet it's exactly what he would serve if he had all the options in the world.