Espionage – Politics Plus

Open Thread September 11 2024

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:48 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 112024

Yesterday, I organized as much as I could to be free to watch the debate last night. As I typed this, I didn’t know whether the Harris campaign ad discussed by Belle had worked. I do now, though – not as I type, but as you read.

I cancelled my paid subscription to The New Yorker (after I had to get a new water heater), but the email newsletter is free, so they didn’t cancel that. This is the first thing I have seen since which is important enough to make me read it. In case anyone is paywalled out of it, I did print it to a pdf. It’s about 46 and a half pages, but it’s still less than a megabyte, and my email will sent up to 2.5 megabytes per message, so I can send it to anyone who wants it.

Just when you thought you couldn’t possibly deplore Elon Musk any more that you already do, comes this article from The Conversation. He fully justifies my referring to hom as the Muskrat (apologies ao any actual muskrats who may be reading.)

Video Thread 6/18/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:02 pm Open Thread, Politics

Jun 182023

Glenn Kirschner – Judge Cannon issues order in Trump prosecution, signaling she will NOT recuse herself from case

The Lincoln Project – Espionage

PBS – Violent rhetoric escalates online after latest Trump indictment (Hey – Someone is covering this!)

Parody Project – Stand with Your Man (not new but still relevant)

Tiny Piglet’s Whole World Changes When She Meets This Baby Cow

Beau – Let’s talk about New Haven and a settlement….

Open Thread January 30, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:41 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 302023

Yesterday, I did get to see Virgil. It was snowing and cold – but I really had to see him because omething had gone wrong in the phone system; he had tried 3 times to call me Friday but I wasn’t able to accept ythe call and I wanted to tell him it was not I who was haning up on him. Fortunately, he didn’t think that, and I got to talk with the inmate who helps him place calls and tell him what happened. I had called the provider, and I did get an answer – frankly it didn’t make sense to me, but I shared it anyway because it’s not something I can fix, and if they are going to they need all available information – at least. I wasn’t able to finish scraping the windshield before starting out in the morning; I got the driver’s side and part of the passenger side clear, but part of it was just rock solid, despite my having turned the defrost on for over a half hour and of course kept it on while driving. I was worried about having to deal with that before leaving for home, and I was also worried, as by this time the snow had reached Pueblo and was coming down, about getting on to the interstate. But by the time I left, the rock hard ice had melted so thoroughly that a couple swipes of the windshield wipers took care of it, and when I got to the interstate there was a huge gap to get into, and just about everyone was driving slowly anyway, plus it was practically dry, both directions (I don’t know how Colorado snowstorms know to fall most heavily on residential areas and frequesntted commercial areas, and less on highways, but they do a good job of it.) So there are three more proofs of one of my favorite sayings (see right). As usual, Virgil returns all greetings. He does appreciate all of you – he knows, among other things, you are company for me, which he can’t be under the circumstances.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Washington Post (no paywall) – Justice Department asks FEC to stand down as prosecutors probe Santos
Quote – The Justice Department has asked the Federal Election Commission to hold off on any enforcement action against George Santos, the Republican congressman from New York who lied about key aspects of his biography, as prosecutors conduct a parallel criminal probe, according to two people familiar with the request…. “Basically they don’t want two sets of investigators tripping over each other,” said David M. Mason, a former FEC commissioner. “And they don’t want anything that the FEC, which is a civil agency, does to potentially complicate their criminal case.”
Click through for story – From WaPo’s keyboards to God’s iPhone.

Timothy Snyder – Thinking about… – The Specter of 2016
Quote – The reporting on this so far seems to miss the larger implications. One of them is that Trump’s historical position looks far cloudier. In 2016, Trump’s campaign manager (Manafort) was a former employee of a Russian oligarch (Deripaska), and owed money to that same Russian oligarch. And the FBI special agent (McGonigal) who was charged with investigating the Trump campaign’s Russian connections then went to work (according to the indictment) for that very same Russian oligarch (Deripaska). This is obviously very bad for Trump personally. But it is also very bad for FBI New York, for the FBI generally, and for the United States of America.
Click through for analysis. Snyder is a historian and this falls right into his special area, namely Europe. What strikes me here is that we all seem to be laboring under themistaken impression that if a responsible adult is aware that there is a problem under his or her purview, he or she will take some action. That does not appear to be the case Look at the 6-year-old school shooter – other students reported to multiple adults that he had a gun, starting early in the day. One of, I guess, the last to hear, just said, “Don’t worry, the school day’s almost over.” And then there was the entire police department in Uvalde. I understand the impulse, I really do, to mind one’s own business, but we citizens deserve better. Just because fascists want to supervise inappropriately doesn’t mean that we must fail to exercise supervision at all.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 11/8/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:53 am Open Thread, Politics

Nov 082022

Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s lawyers believed Clarence Thomas was their best shot at overturning the election results

The Lincoln Project – Country Over Party

Ring of Fire – Popular MAGA ‘Hot Babe’ Influencer Turns Out To Be Chinese Spy (It’s not just because they are easy to fool. It’s because MAGA weakens our democracy. And the more our democracy is weakened, the more of a superior position they are in with regard to us.)

Robert Reich – Debunking the Big Lies Coming From Republicans

Beau – Let’s talk about a message for this week….

Open Thread October 15, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:51 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 152022

Yesterday, my BFF had a colonoscopy, which I know because she needed me to give her a ride home, which I gladly did. She had hoped to be able to drive herself home, but anyone who has either had a coloscopy ot sat beside a loved one having one, knows that’s a no-go. Her son will help her get her car back home later. She’ll hear more detailed results Monday and I may be in as much suspense as she is. She mentioned “an endometri-something” and I said,”If you do have an endometriome, wherever it is, don’t wait until it is over 9 pounds like I did.” In other news, I confirmed that the Social Security COLA for 2023 wioll be 8.7%, and the Part B Medicare premiums will go down. Very cool.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

HuffPost – ‘2000 Mules’ Has Radicalized The 2022 Midterm Elections
Quote – By June 2, the right-wing polling outfit Rasmussen said 15% of survey respondents had seen the film. Multiple Republican candidates, including two secretary of state nominees in pivotal swing states, have praised the film publicly, a HuffPost review found. And the movie has inspired groups across the country to hold stakeouts at drop boxes and to mobilize again around Donald Trump’s lie that, as the then-president said in August 2020, “the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.”
Click through for story. Just what we needed – NOT.

The New Yorker – Has the C.I.A. Done More Harm Than Good?
Quote – It can be hard to sort out which agencies do what; players in the espionage business aren’t always good with boundaries. Both the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. make use of satellite resources, including commercial ones, but there is a separate agency in charge of a spy-satellite fleet, the National Reconnaissance Office—not to be confused with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which deals with both space-based and ground-level imaging, or with Space Delta 18, the nation’s newest intelligence agency, which is attached to the Space Force. Abolishing the C.I.A. might do nothing more than reconfigure the turf wars.
Click through for details. I honestly don’t have a problem with there being 18 agencies, provided they’re not all incompetent i the same ways at the same time (And also provided that whatever part of the Executive Branch they report to both reuires accuracy and also takes the reports seriously when they come in.) Obviously, the Secret Service and the FBI are weak on one or both of those points.

Food For Thought

Open Thread October 13, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:10 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 132022

Yesterday, President Biden designated Camp Hale as a National Monument. It’s the site, high in the Rockies, where the Army’s 10th Mountain Division trained during World War II. “It was the first and only division of the U.S. military trained to fight in mountain terrain, and many of the soldiers came back to the area to help build the local ski industry.” Of course, Colorado Republican heads exploded. They are painting it as a “land grab,” but the entire area is already protected anyway. This is just a designation of a piece of Federal land as a Monument. It may possibly increase funding (which is needed.) I thought a little good news would be helpful today. I’m breaking my own (unwritten) rule today to use two short takes from the same source. That’s because, though each highlights a different person, both center on a crook from China, and the facts in both articles are from the same investigation. We certainly have some egregious crooks in the US – but we have no monopoly on them. Also, I’ll be watching the hearing today, so I won’t be saying anything about it till tomorrow.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

ProPublica – How a Chinese American Gangster Transformed Money Laundering for Drug Cartels
Quote – As they investigated [Xizhi] Li’s tangled financial dealings, U.S. agents came across evidence indicating that his money laundering schemes involved Chinese government officials and the Communist Party elite. China’s omnipresent security forces tightly control and monitor its state-run economy. Yet Li and others moved tens of millions of dollars among Chinese banks and companies with seeming impunity, according to court documents and national security officials. The criminal rings exploited a landscape in which more than $3.8 trillion of capital has left China since 2006, making the country the world’s top “exporter of hot money,”
Click through for the beginning of the onvestigation (and probably ore than you ever wanted to know about money laundering.)

ProPublica – The Globetrotting Con Man and Suspected Spy Who Met With President Trump
Quote – In July 2018, President Donald Trump met at his New Jersey golf club with a Chinese businessman who should have never gotten anywhere near the most powerful man in the world. Tao Liu had recently rented a luxurious apartment in Trump Tower in New York and boasted of joining the exclusive Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. But Liu was also a fugitive from Chinese justice. Media reports published overseas three years before the meeting had described him as the mastermind of a conspiracy that defrauded thousands of investors.
Click through for Part Two of the investigation. This is more information which doesn’t exactly make the Secret Service look good.

Food For Thought

Open Thread September 20, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:14 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 202022

Yesterday, when I opened up Weather Underground to record the times of sunrise and sunset (I want to have a full year), I noticed two things. The first one I couldn’t have missed, becausethe first thing that shows up id a 10-day graph of local weather conditions with the temperatiure in red – and yesterday, showing that Wednesday and Thursday are going to be cold. Most people might not think so, but for me, highs in the high fifties and lows in the low forties are “bundle up, or spend the day sneezing” weather. But the other thing I noticed was that California is due for some much-needed rain. I hope it goes into all the places that need it the most, and doesn’t flood too much. I expect Colleen will keep us up to date – hopefully her home will not flood.

Cartoon – 20 Meredith loaded

Short Takes –

Civil Discourse – Will the 11th Circuit Trump Trump?
Quote – By now, we all know that DOJ executed a lawful search warrant at Mar-a-Lago after Trump spent months haggling over the return of papers that belonged to the government. Ultimately one of his lawyers signed a document certifying that all of the materials were returned. This was a lie. Numerous records including approximately one hundred classified documents were found when DOJ executed its search warrant. Some folders that should have contained classified material were empty. Nothing is publicly known about the fate of those documents.
Click through. This is a great summry of how we got to where we are in the documents investigation (and they are not all that easy to keep straight.)

Justice News – Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Administers the Oath of Allegiance and Delivers Congratulatory Remarks at Ellis Island Ceremony in Celebration of Constitution Week and Citizenship Day
Quote – Like [the authors of the Constitution], each of you has now made a commitment not only to this nation and your fellow Americans, but to the generations of Americans who will come after you. In that commitment, you have given your posterity – and the posterity of all of us – a precious gift. I know how valuable that gift is because it is the same one my grandparents gave my family and me…. Of course, we still have work to do to make a more perfect union. Although the Rule of Law has always been our guiding light, we have not always been faithful to it. The Rule of Law is not assured. It is fragile. It demands constant effort and vigilance.
Click through for the full speech. Yes, this is a feel-good article. We sometimes need (at least I do) to allow ourselves to feel good, even though what we are feeling good about may not be perfct.

Food For Thought