@anon71262119 made the good point that this ought to move into its own thread (though I would add to her reasonable project of untangling the various political knots of the day that whether the POTUS is literally compromised by Russian intelligence is the first – and, until it’s definitely answered, the only – question that needs to be asked about Trump’s first 100 days; admittedly, however, circles had in the last miserable quagmire of a thread been walked in and then walked in again).
Even if no new evidence ever emerges from the Congressional committees and federal agencies investigating the Trump campaign for collusion with GRU, this is already the story of the decade. If an alternate-reality Barack Obama who was given to lying about Russian money in his finances had run in 2008 or 2012 on sanctions/NATO-collective-defense skepticism while actively benefitting from a deliberate, illegal, and unprecedented Kremlin influence operation designed to help elect him in subversion of American law & sovereignty, the Right would have rightly lit up and melted in a ball of white-hot patriotic outrage.
Instead, the stooge-candidate ran next to the letter “R.” Betrayals of principle and country have always had their market values, but I admit to being surprised upon learning that so many “conservatives” are happy to render the service of invertebrate quislingism in exchange for a payment that is so strictly and uselessly alphabetic.
Anyway, my intention in creating this thread is not to continue touring the mangled wreckage of the great alt-right Thernovichian hive-mind: it’s to discuss this matter with adults as developments appear on the horizon. Until then, the smooth sounds of the past, which is rumored not even to be past:
This play on Cernovich always makes me laugh. I really liked him until he decided he wanted to create an Alt-Right News Network. Gorilla Mindset is a darn good book.
I don’t think I’d normally mock someone for having a lisp, but he is so of that viciously juvenile kind of world that I can’t help it. So too when Chuck Johnson mocks people’s looks, etc.
As for the eased FSB licensing stricture: whatever the intention and impact (I’ve heard conflicting things, though I can’t imagine how it can be construed as a good idea to smooth out even the most unintended sanctions-related wrinkle while bombs fall in Ukraine; and why were they celebrating this in the Duma before Congress was even notified?), it should give us a sense of the extent to which you cannot do anything at all in the Russian Federation without coming into direct contact with the FSB. The Russian government is in many ways a pure securocracy. Everything from luxury travel to oil business to adultery runs through the spooks. The point being that if you’re a self-promoting, attention-hungry nihilist millionaire and you’re looking to spend some time with girls who “have no morals,” you’re going to be doing it for an audience.
Any insight into this? Reading the article would have it appear that companies simply would/could circumvent the original sanctions to conduct their business, making it a slightly longer, but not harder, process to get business done. Which if it were the case, then Obama’s handing down of the sanctions would simply be a PR move and Trump lifting them would be what…a poor PR move? If that were the case, it doesn’t make sense for him to do it, as he seems to live and die by PR…
I don’t know enough about this to know which of the competing accounts is correct. The December sanctions were intended specifically to target intel and security services (that’s when we kicked GRU out of Westchester & Maryland, too), so it would make sense to undo any collateral damage to US tech companies. As I said above, though: why was it being celebrated by RU pols before US pols even knew about it?
And I have a very tough time taking the TASS account at face value (a common theme, given that TASS is the Russian government). I don’t see how this particular element of the sanctions could represent a bumbling misstep by US authorities both when it was imposed and when it was repealed? And it was futile in that it was easy to get around, but Microsoft complained?
Anyway, to restate the obvious: this sure demonstrates that you can’t throw a stone in Russia without hitting the FSB.
Yeah, completely unfamiliar with TASS, was just digging around after reading the article you had posted and found that. It seems as though it would be a massive blunder if it were the case. And the fact that they appeared to know the outcome before us is troubling indeed.
One thing to note: this was part of the late-December round of punishments Obama ordered in retaliation for the USIC’s conclusion that the Kremlin was definitively responsible for the hacks & intended the interference to help elect Donald Trump. Recall that Putin took “the high road” and made a show of choosing not to retaliate (for reasons that were obvious & transparent – the candidate he’d broken the law & risked disaster in order to help was just a few weeks out from inauguration). You almost get the image of him ordering some aide to begin drafting Treasury letters undoing various elements of the sanctions that very day.
It is something I developed from a skill I learned in doing book reports back in the 5th grade.
After waiting until the night before the report was due, I would hastily write a couple of paragraphs of plot and character development. Concluding the paper with - “If you want to see what happens, read the book.”
The teacher was never fooled.
Dang, that last sentence pained me to not type a commalipsis as its ending.
