Updated Summary of the Evidence on Trump's Collusion with Russia

As a country, we haven't really wrapped up this investigation.  We've now moved on to Ukrainegate.  Mueller delivered his report and testified before Congress, but most Democrats, at least, still believe Trump colluded with Russia.  The belief is that he did, but he obstructed justice so that Mueller was unable to prove that he did.

First of all, it's clear that Mueller had extensive power to invest to investigate the Russian collusion narrative.  He had the power to interview witnesses and send them to jail if they lied.  Some were sent to jail for lying, but none were caught lying about Russian collusion.  Mueller also had access to the extensive electronic surveillance records of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies.  These presumably processed much of the "proof" that Russia tried to hack our election in favor of Trump.  (Though most this proof is classified and hasn't been made public.)

While there is evidence that every instance of Russia/Putin cited in the Mueller Report was initiated by western intelligence, I believe the case of Joseph Mifsud is sufficient to prove that the Mueller Report was based upon a false premise and was unwilling to acknowledge the truth. Please see my post, Joseph Mifsud, Western Intelligence Asset.

Other reputed collusion with Russian agents have been discredited, in my view, including Steele, Kislyak, Kilimnik, Oknyansky, Sater, and Veselnitskaya.

Other parts of the story are shaky too, in my opinion.  For example the highly placed source who U.S. intelligence reported had access to Putin and pass on the information that he was personally directing the anti-Hillary / pro-Trump seems to have turned up in a mansion in Arlington, Virginia living under his own name, Oleg Smolenkov.  But wouldn't Putin have prevented him from leaving Russia, and/or tried hurt him if was really a traitor close to Putin whose name has been all over the U.S. news media?

Julian Assange was supposed at the center of the release of Democratic emails, yet Mueller's team never interviewed him.

The alleged Facebook emails directed by the Kremlin via the Internet Research Agency in Moscow were ridiculous on their face:  Facebook Said 80,000 Russian Posts Were Buried in 33 Trillion Facebook Offerings Over Two-Year Period Further Undermining NYT’s Case:

The newspaper failed to tell their readers that Facebook account holders in the United States had been “served” 33 trillion Facebook posts during that same period — 413 million times more than the 80,000 posts from the Russian company. 

What Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 31, 2017 is a far cry from what the Times claims. “Our best estimate is that approximately 126 million people may have been served one of these [IRA-generated] stories at some time during the two year period,” Stretch said. 

Stretch was expressing a theoretical possibility rather than an established fact. He said an estimated 126 million Facebook members might have gotten at least one story from the IRA –- not over the ten week election period, but over 194 weeks during the two years 2015 through 2017—including a full year after the election.

Facebook didn’t even claim most of those 80,000 IRA posts were election–related. It offered no data on what proportion of the feeds to those 29 million people were.
In addition, Facebook’s Vice President for News Feed, Adam Moseri, acknowledged in 2016 that FB subscribers actually read only about 10 percent of the stories Facebook puts in their News Feed every day. The means that very few of the IRA stories that actually make it into a subscriber’s news feed on any given day are actually read. 

And now, according to the further research, the odds that Americans saw any of these IRA ads—let alone were influenced by them—are even more astronomical. In his Oct. 2017 testimony, Stretch said that from 2015 to 2017, “Americans using Facebook were exposed to, or ‘served,’ a total of over 33 trillion stories in their News Feeds.” 

To put the 33 trillion figure over two years in perspective, the 80,000 Russian-origin Facebook posts represented just .0000000024 of total Facebook content in that time.
Shane and Mazzetti did not report the 33 trillion number even though The New York Times’ own coverage of that 2017 Stretch testimony explicitly stated, “Facebook cautioned that the Russia-linked posts represented a minuscule amount of content compared with the billions of posts that flow through users’ News Feeds everyday.” 

The Times‘ touting of the bogus 126 million out 137 million voters, while not reporting the 33 trillion figure, should vie in the annals of journalism as one of the most spectacularly misleading uses of statistics of all time.  

The reported Russian bot posting included such as items as a muscle-bound Bernie Sanders in a Speedo? A picture of Jesus arm-wrestling with a pro-Hillary Satan?  The report notes that only 8.4 percent of IRA tweets were election-related. If so, what does Mueller think the other 91.6 percent were about? Could it be that IRA was not an intelligence agency after all, but, as it’s been argued, a “clickbait” operation aimed at drumming up business?

13 Russians and three companies accused of running a US-aimed social media campaign out of the St. Petersburg–based Internet Research Agency (IRA). By now the details are well known: About $100,000 was spent on Facebook ads, more than half of that after the November 2016 vote. The bulk of the remaining $46,000 in ads ran during the primaries. The majority of the ads did not even reference the election and got little traction.

Everybody knows that the U.S., Russia, China and other countries spy on one another, so I'm sure that there's some of that.  But none of the key accusations of collusion hold up.

And on and on.  I'm exhausted, but there's so much more of this Trump-Russia conspiracy theory that doesn't add up.  For a more coherent explanation, from my perspective, please see my post, What Was Russiagate All About?

Joseph Mifsud, Western Intelligence Asset

Mifsud kicked off the Mueller probe (after the Steele Dossier had been discredited), and was cited a gazillion times in the final Mueller Report as a Russian trying to help Trump win the election.  In reality, he was a Western intelligence asset.  Here is some information as to why I believe that:

The Maltese Phantom of Russiagate

Although Mifsud has traveled many times to Russia and has contacts with Russian academics, his closest public ties are to Western governments, politicians, and institutions, including the CIA, FBI and British intelligence services. One of Mifsud’s jobs has been to train diplomats, police officers, and intelligence officers at schools in London and Rome, where he lived and worked over the last dozen years. 

If Mifsud truly is a Russian agent – which is key to the collusion narrative – he could prove to be one of the most promiscuous spies in modern history. Western intelligence agencies and European politicians would have to spend the next few decades repairing the damage he did to global security by infiltrating key institutions and personnel. As of yet, however, there is no indication that any intelligence service has begun the embarrassing, but highly important, assessment of how it was penetrated and how it can re-fortify the vulnerabilities that Mifsud may have exposed. There has been no public effort to arrest him. (Notably, he went into hiding in Italy to avoid questioning during the Mueller probe, contradicting early rumors that he was recalled to Russia or liquidated.)

Rumors circulated in the press that the Kremlin-linked professor may have been recalled to Russia or was liquidated. 

A new book by former colleagues of Mifsud’s – Stephan Roh, a 50-year-old Swiss-German lawyer, and Thierry Pastor, a 35-year-old French political analyst – reports that he is alive and well. Their account includes a recent interview with him...  Roh said Mifsud was afraid when he first went into hiding. “He had been moved to a place far away in Italy. In November and December, it broke him down. He had no internet or access to communications."

Pastor and Roh, who hired Mifsud as a business development consultant in 2015, write that far from being a Russian spy, Mifsud “had only one master: the Western Political, Diplomatic and Intelligence World, his only home, of which he is still deeply dependent.” 

There is plenty of open source material that supports their thesis. 

Contrary to media reports depicting Mifsud as a shadowy figure – an Oct. 31 2017 article in the New York Times, for example, says Mifsud “presented himself as a professor” although “his academic affiliations are hard to pin down” – he was a respected teacher and employed by legitimate academic institutions. He taught at Link Campus University in Rome (photo at top), whose lecturers and professors include senior Western diplomats and intelligence officials from a number of NATO countries, especially Italy and the United Kingdom. 

Mifsud also taught at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and the London Academy of Diplomacy, which trained diplomats and government officials, some of them sponsored by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Council, or by their own governments. 

He also taught at the London Center for International Law Practice, where Papadopoulos was also affiliated. 

Researchers, including British political analyst Chris Blackburn, have used open sources to show that Mifsud was a well-known figure in Western academic, diplomatic, and intelligence circles. Blackburn, whose research has previously focused on Islamic terrorist groups, has worked with senior leaders within global intelligence agencies. He told RealClearInvestigations that Mifsud’s known contacts suggest he’s not a Russian spy – or he is one of the most successful in history.

Smith is a prominent British diplomat whose biography describes her as an envoy with 25 years of experience and “expert in managing the complexities of global business practices.” Her postings included Beijing and Islamabad.

She worked with Mifsud at three different institutions—the London Academy of Diplomacy, University of Stirling, and Link Campus University in Rome. Blackburn believes that Smith’s working relationship with Mifsud is an important piece of evidence. “She was on the United Kingdom’s Joint Intelligence Committee,” says Blackburn. “It’s a very significant institution in the UK’s intelligence community, answering directly to the prime minister.” 

For eight years, until April 2017, Smith was also a member of Britain's security vetting appeals panel, which, according to its website, is “an independent avenue of appeal for Civil Service staff and contractors whose security clearance has been refused or withdrawn.”

“Smith was vetting UK government employees,” says Blackburn. “So how could she have missed that her colleague Joseph Mifsud was actually a Russian spy? She continued to work alongside him. She got her picture taken with him.”

If it’s true the professor was working with Russian intelligence, says Blackburn, “he was in place to recruit anyone he was training, in Rome or London. Effectively, Mifsud would have been a talent spotter for Russian intelligence.” 

Moreover, explains Blackburn, if Mifsud proved to be a spy, he would’ve compromised a number of high-level European intelligence and diplomatic officials the professor worked with in London and Rome. They include Gianni Pittella, an Italian senator who was previously a member of the European Parliament, where he headed the Socialists and Democrats alliance, one of the Parliament’s most important left-wing blocs. 

“Joseph is my dear friend,” Pittella told the Italian press in November after news of Mifsud’s alleged involvement in the Russiagate scandal spread. Pittella was a visiting lecturer when Mifsud was director of the London Academy of Diplomacy and is on the Link Campus Foundation's board.

Link offers degrees in strategic studies and “diplomatic science.” Blackburn says that among the students who attend Link are police officers from around Europe, especially Italy, Malta, and eastern European countries, as well as a large contingent from Brazil. Link’s president is the former Italian interior minister, Vincenzo Scotti, who is alleged to have told Mifsud to hide. 

I can't go on.  There's too much evidence to expect you to read this all.  Just go to the link and read the full article if you are not convinced.  Then tell us why the NY Times or the Washington Post or CNN or Nancy Pelosi, etc. or any mainstream media outlet or prominent Democratic politician will not acknowledge that the whole basis for the Mueller investigation was a set up by a western intelligence asset (not a Putin operative)?  I guess that would be embarrassing, so they must believe the better bet is to dismiss as a conspiracy theory anyone who points out the holes in their conspiracy theory.

Here's another article, from the mainstream Guardian newspaper, which, while not coming out saying directly that Mifsud is a western intelligence asset, strongly implies as much:

Undeterred by the rickety surroundings, Mifsud quickly found institutions ready to boost his credentials. The University of East Anglia took him on in 2011 and claimed he was a professor, although no one can see how he earned the title. In 2016, he moved to Stirling University, which was delighted that he flew “the University of Stirling flag” at “high-profile” meetings with Putin. You have to have encountered the fierce jealousy with which academics guard their specialisms to realise how unusual it is for two universities to treat Mifsud as an authority on international diplomacy when what expertise he possessed was on early years education. 

I asked Stirling and East Anglia what academic qualifications Mifsud had for the posts they granted him, what checks they had run on his academy and what financial arrangements they had made with him. Britain’s universities are as bad at replying to questions in the public interest as they are at defending freedom of speech. Stirling refused to answer. East Anglia said it might get back to me this week.

Tellingly, as soon as the scandal broke, the London Academy of Diplomacy closed its doors. It’s almost as if it were an intelligence asset whose cover had been blown, rather than an academic institution dedicated to an impartial understanding of international affairs. But for a few years, East Anglia and Stirling helped Mifsud appear to be an expert on diplomacy.

Check out Mueller's Congressional testimony regarding Mifsud:

JORDAN:
Well I'm reading from your report, Mifsud told Papadopoulos, Papadopoulos tells the diplomat, the diplomat tells the FBI, the FBI opens the investigation July 31st, 2016. 

And here we are three years later, July of 2019, the country's been put through this and the central figure who launches it all, lies to us and you guys don't hunt him down and interview him again and you don't charge him with a crime.

JORDAN:
Director, the FBI interviewed Joseph Mifsud on February 10th, 2017. In that interview, Mr. Mifsud lied. You point this out on page 193, Volume 1, Mifsud denied, Mifsud also falsely stated. In addition, Mifsud omitted. Three times, he lied to the FBI; yet, you didn't charge him with a crime. Why...
...
MUELLER:
I can't get into internal deliberations with regard to who or who would not be charged.
JORDAN:
You charged a lot of other people for making false statements. Let's remember this -- let's remember this, in 2016 the FBI did something they probably haven't done before, they spied on two American citizens associated with a presidential campaign.
George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. With Carter Page they went to the FISA court, they used the now famous dossier as part of the reason they were able to get the warrant and spy on Carter Page for a better part of a year. With Mr. Papadopoulos, they didn't go to the court, they used human sources, all kinds of -- from about the moment Papadopoulos joins the Trump campaign, you've got all these people all around the world starting to swirl around him, names like Halper, Downer, Mifsud, Thompson, meeting in Rome, London, all kinds of places.
The FBI even sent -- even sent a lady posing as somebody else, went by the name Azmiturk (ph), even dispatched her to London to spy on Mr. Papadopoulos. In one of these meetings, Mr. Papadopoulos is talking to a foreign diplomat and he tells the diplomat Russians have dirt on Clinton. That diplomat then contacts the FBI and the FBI opens an investigation based on that fact. You point this out on page 1 of the report. July 31st, 2016 they open the investigation based on that piece of information.
Diplomat tells Papadopoulos Russians have dirt -- excuse me, Papadopoulos tells the diplomat Russians have dirt on Clinton, diplomat tells the FBI. What I'm wondering is who told Papadopoulos? How'd he find out?
MUELLER:
I can't get into the evidentiary filings.
JORDAN:
Yes, you can because you wrote about it, you gave us the answer. Page 192 of the report, you tell us who told him. Joseph Mifsud, Joseph Mifsud's the guy who told Papadopoulos, the mysterious professor who lives in Rome and London, works at -- teaches in two different universities.
This is the guy who told Papadopoulos he's the guy who starts it all, and when the FBI interviews him, he lies three times and yet you don't charge him with a crime. You charge Rick Gates for false statements, you charge Paul Manafort for false statements, you charge Michael Cohen with false statements, you charge Michael Flynn a three star general with false statements, but the guy who puts the country through this whole saga, starts it all for three years we've lived this now, he lies and you guys don't charge him. And I'm curious as to why.
MUELLER:
Well I can't get into it and it's obvious I think that we can't get into charging decisions.
JORDAN:
When the FBI interviewed him in February -- FBI interviews him in February, when the Special Counsel's Office interviewed Mifsud, did he lie to you guys too?
MUELLER:
Can't get into that.
JORDAN:
Did you interview Mifsud?
MUELLER:
Can't get into that.
JORDAN:
Is Mifsud western intelligence or Russian intelligence?
MUELLER:
Can't get into that.
JORDAN:
A lot of things you can't get into. What's interesting, you can charge 13 Russians no one's ever heard of, no one's ever seen, no one's ever going to hear of them, no one's ever going to see them, you can charge them, you can charge all kinds of people who are around the president with false statements but the guy who launches everything, the guy who puts this whole story in motion, you can't charge him. I think that's amazing.
MUELLER:
I'm not certain I -- I'm not certain I agree with your characterizations.
JORDAN:
Well I'm reading from your report, Mifsud told Papadopoulos, Papadopoulos tells the diplomat, the diplomat tells the FBI, the FBI opens the investigation July 31st, 2016.
And here we are three years later, July of 2019, the country's been put through this and the central figure who launches it all, lies to us and you guys don't hunt him down and interview him again and you don't charge him with a crime. 

Here's more about seriously Mifsud figured in the 2 year Mueller investigation:  Insinuendo: Why the Mueller Report Doth Repeat So Much.  (Hint: It was coverup of the fact that Trump was framed by western intelligence agencies, much like the 2004 Kay Report documented weapons of mass destruction program related activities covered up the bad intelligence that framed Saddam Hussein.)

Ever since the debunking of Trump-Russia dirt paid for by the Democrats and compiled by the opposition firm Fusion GPS, government officials and conspiracists have insisted that the Steele dossier had nothing to do with launching the investigation. The story is that the FBI flew into action after learning that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos had made an alarming statement to an Australian diplomat in a London bar, telling him about Russian intentions to interfere with the U.S. election.

From the first page of his report, the special counsel is eager to establish the narrative that that Papadopoulos, not Steele, sparked the initial investigation. Mueller writes that in May 2016 “Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of [a] foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”

But it’s not enough to say it once. Come page 6, Mueller writes, “Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton.”
Mueller repeats this claim nearly word for word again on pages 81, 89, and 93.
At least page 192 offers a hint of variation: The FBI “approached Papadopoulos for an interview” because of “his suggestion to a foreign government representative that Russia had indicated that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton.”

Such relentless repetition might be dismissed as lazy cut-and-paste writing. But repetition is an ancient and effective tool of rhetoric. 

Although the Mueller Report did not include any detailed discussion of Mifsud's background and probable allegiance, it was filled with reports from the mainstream media, many of which were based on "intelligence leaks":

Mr. Mueller, rather than purely relying on the evidence provided by witnesses and documents, I think you relied a lot on media. I'd like to know how many times you cited "The Washington Post" in your report.
MUELLER:
I did not have knowledge of that figure, but -- I don't have knowledge of that figure.
LESKO:
I counted about 60 times. How many times did you cite "The New York Times"? I counted...
MUELLER:
Again, I have no idea.
LESKO:
I counted about 75 times. How many times did you cite Fox News?
MUELLER:
As with the other two, I have no idea.
LESKO:
About 25 times. I've got to say it looks like Volume 2 is mostly regurgitated press stories. Honestly, there's almost nothing in Volume 2 that I couldn't already hear or know simply by having a $50 cable news subscription. However, your investigation cost American taxpayers $25 million. Mr. Mueller, you cited media reports nearly 200 times in your report then in a footnote, a small footnote, number 7, page 15 of Volume 2 of your report you wrote. I quote, "this section summarizes and cites various news stories not for the truth of the information contained in the stories but rather to place Candidate Trump's response to those stories in context." 

 Is it any wonder that many in the intelligence agencies are anxious to impeach Trump?  Clearly, they have much to lose.

Agriculture and Civilization

Courtesy of Slate Star Codex, I'm gaining new insight into agriculture and the beginnings of human civilization.  In addition to reviewing the book, Against the Grain, Scott (at Slate Star) references a 1999 article by Jared Diamond entitled The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race.

Some quotes from the various sources cited above:

Scott Alexander at Slate Star describing James Scott's book:

Someone on SSC Discord summarized James Scott’s Against The Grain as “basically 300 pages of calling wheat a fascist”. I have only two qualms with this description. First, the book is more like 250 pages; the rest is just endnotes. Second, “fascist” isn’t quite the right aspersion to use here. 

Against The Grain should be read as a prequel to Scott’s most famous work, Seeing Like A State. SLaS argued that much of what we think of as “progress” towards a more orderly world – like Prussian scientific forestry, or planned cities with wide streets – didn’t make anyone better off or grow the economy. It was “progress” only from a state’s-eye perspective of wanting everything to be legible to top-down control and taxation. He particularly criticizes the High Modernists, Le Corbusier-style architects who replaced flourishing organic cities with grandiose but sterile rectangular grids. 

Against the Grain extends the analysis from the 19th century all the way back to the dawn of civilization. If, as Samuel Johnson claimed, “The Devil was the first Whig”, Against the Grain argues that wheat was the first High Modernist.

 Jared Diamond from 1999:

To science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy taught us that our earth isn't the center of the universe but merely one of billions of heavenly bodies. From biology we learned that we weren't specially created by God but evolved along with millions of other species. Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.

The religious connection (via Slate Star):

In this model, the gradual drying-out of Sumeria in the 4th millennium BC caused a shift away from wetland foraging and toward grain farming. The advent of grain farming made oppression possible, and a new class of oppression-entrepreneurs arose to turn this possibility into a reality. They incentivized farmers to intensify grain production further at the expense of other foods, and this turned into a vicious cycle of stronger states = more grain = stronger states. Within a few centuries, Uruk and a few other cities developed the full model: tax collectors, to take the grain; scribes, to measure the grain; and priests, to write stories like The Debate Between Sheep And Grain, with immortal lines like: 

From sunrise till sunset, may the name of Grain be praised. People should submit to the yoke of Grain. Whoever has silver, whoever has jewels, whoever has cattle, whoever has sheep shall take a seat at the gate of whoever has Grain, and pass his time there

And so the people were taught that growing grain was Correct and Right and The Will Of God and they shouldn’t do anything stupid like try to escape back to the very close and easily-escapable-to areas where everyone was still living in Edenic plenty... 

And the ancient Greeks had their Eleusinian Mysteries, where “the mighty, and marvelous, and most perfect secret suitable for one initiated into the highest truths” was the “revelation of the mystic grain”. Can we trace a direct line from there to the sheaves of wheat that feature on fifteen out of fifty US state seals? On the National Emblem of China? The Coat of Arms of the Soviet Union? Does this last one really show the Earth caught in a pincers between two giant stalks of wheat? Should we really make impressionable schoolchildren sing songs of praise for “amber waves of grain”?

A catalog of woes accompanying cereal civilization (from Diamond):

Besides malnutrition, starvation, and epidemic diseases, farming helped bring another curse upon humanity: deep class divisions. Hunter-gatherers have little or no stored food, and no concentrated food sources, like an orchard or a herd of cows: they live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day. Therefore, there can be no kings, no class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others. Only in a farming population could a healthy, non-producing elite set itself above the disease-ridden masses...

Thus with the advent of agriculture the elite became better off, but most people became worse off. Instead of swallowing the progressivist party line that we chose agriculture because it was good for us, we must ask how we got trapped by it despite its pitfalls...

Hunter-gatherers practiced the most successful and longest-lasting life style in human history. In contrast, we're still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it's unclear whether we can solve it. 

Contemporary Fake News in Light of Ptahhotep's Communication Ethics

My friend Stuart Smith sent this scholarly article: 
Do We Still Adhere to the Norms of Ancient Egypt?
A Comparison of Ptahhotep’s Communication Ethics with Current Regulatory Principles

It's not often I get a chance to review something like The Teachings of Ptahhotep, written between 3,850 and 4,360 years ago. 

Here's one of Ptahhotep's principles which leaps off the page:

The journalist shall report only in accordance with facts of which he/she knows the origin.

Much of contemporary journalism stems from insider leaks and "intelligence" agencies.  Hence, we are told of the "slam dunk" for the evidence against Saddam Hussein leading to the 2003 Iraq War.  Today, suspect intelligence agencies tell us who is the enemy (Russia, Venezuela) and provide facts without evidence in support of the military-industrial establishment along with friends of Netanyahu.  Ptahhotep would not be pleased.

Fortunately, President Donald Trump is exposing the fake news industry!

‘no one is born wise...’ the sage cautions already at the end of the Prologue. He continues: ‘Don’t be arrogant about your knowledge. Consult the ignorant and the wise alike’.

The limits of art are not reached
No artist’s skills are perfect
A perfect word is hidden more deeply than precious stones.
It is to be found near the maid-servants working at the mill-stone...

Report a thing observed, not heard.
If it is negligible, don’t say anything.’

If you are a man who leads,
Listen calmly to the speech of one who pleads;

Nice that the last couplet rhymes in modern English as it presumably did in Ancient Egyptian.  Our scholars don't write so poetically these days.

Do not boast…
One has great respect for the silent man

Many of our men's group's members pass this test with regard to email discussion.

Concentrate on excellence,
Your silence is better than chatter.
Speak when you know you have a solution,
It is the skilled who should speak in council;
Speaking is harder than all other work,
He who understands it makes it serve.

No comment.

Do not attack him because he is weak,
Let him alone, he will confute himself.
Do not answer him to relieve your heart,
Do not vent yourself against your opponent,
Wretched is he who injures a poor man

Great is justice, lasting in effect...
Baseness may seize riches.
Yet crime never lands its wares
In the end it is justice that lasts

Michael Cohen agrees with this latter paragraph.  He learned the hard way.

Greed, according to Ptahhotep, Giddens and Hutton, must be contained, prevented and counteracted, like an infectious disease for which there is no known cure

Seriously, it seems capitalistic greed is our main journalistic problem.  Freedom of speech is our main strength.

The following is inspiring:

Ptahhotep may deserve to again become a symbol for continuity of civilization, as a phenomenon opposed to the now commonly perceived (and invoked) discontinuity or clash of civilizations. Whether the principles actually originated with him and his culture is of secondary importance today. They manifest numerous similarities with ideas found in the Abrahamic and Indian religions, which were both apparently first written down at least a millennium after him, and with many other (as far as is known) subsequent systems of ethical thought, such as Ubuntu, Confucian, Taoist, Stoic, Kantian and Habermasian philosophy, representing humanist universalism, freedom and responsibility and the normative macro-currents of virtue ethics and duty ethics. In particular, the ethics and ideals of Ptahhotep largely correspond with those of present-day conscientious information-gatherers and disseminators, including journalists, public relations professionals, civil servants, legislators, law enforcers, lawyers, scientists and teachers.

Ptahhotep provides the first detailed representation of what it means to be civilized.

Prophetic Words from the Clintonian '90s

A friend of mine wrote the following:

Yesterday for some reason I listened to several interesting podcasts;

"Left, Right and Center"

"The Argument"

and

"On the Media" that is also an NPR program from WNYC.

It the last pod

So during the OTM podcast I heard the following that blew my mind:

The cultural left, wrote Rorty, had come “to give cultural politics preference over real politics, and to mock the very idea that democratic institutions might once again be made to serve social justice.” He foresaw cultural politics on the left as contributing to a tidal wave of resentment that would one day result in a time when “all the sadism which the academic left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back.”

As democratic institutions fail, he writes in the quote above:

[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers—themselves desperately afraid of being downsized—are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.
At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. A scenario like that of Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here may then be played out. For once a strongman takes office, nobody can predict what will happen. In 1932, most of the predictions made about what would happen if Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor were wildly overoptimistic.
One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words [slur for an African-American that begins with "n"] and [slur for a Jewish person that begins with "k"] will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.

He also then argues, however, that this sadism will not solely be the result of “economic inequality and insecurity,” and that such explanations would be “too simplistic.” Nor would the strongman who comes to power do anything but worsen economic conditions. He writes next, "after my imagined strongman takes charge, he will quickly make his peace with the international superrich.”

Amazing hey?

I looked into this, and found some context for these prophetic words from Richard Rorty:

In Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America (1997), Rorty differentiates between what he sees as the two sides of the Left, a cultural Left and a progressive Left. He criticizes the cultural Left, which is exemplified by post-structuralists such as Foucault and postmodernists such as Lyotard, for offering critiques of society, but no alternatives (or alternatives that are so vague and general as to be abdications). Although these intellectuals make insightful claims about the ills of society, Rorty suggests that they provide no alternatives and even occasionally deny the possibility of progress. On the other hand, the progressive Left, exemplified for Rorty by the pragmatist Dewey, Whitman and James Baldwin, makes hope for a better future its priority. Without hope, Rorty argues, change is spiritually inconceivable and the cultural Left has begun to breed cynicism. Rorty sees the progressive Left as acting in the philosophical spirit of pragmatism.

So here is my take:

Rorty seems to be foreshadowing the failure of identity politics to meet societal needs following the retreat of socialism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the adoption by China of capitalism in the late 1980s, the model for the U.S. and the world in general was to recognize western style capitalism as the only feasible economic model.  The preferred approach was to even the playing field by removing identity-based obstacles to success -- i.e. by reducing discrimination.  This seems sensible, even in retrospect.  We've made progress in reducing discrimination!

Accompanying the Clinton era push to reduce discrimination was an acceleration of economic globalization.  Nationalism and its accompanying favoritism for existing rich countries was seen to be a roadblock to progress.  Global capitalism was seen to be a win-win affair (nonzero!) with poorer economies getting a chance to participate more fully in the global economy and share in the benefits, while richer economies would get access to inexpensive labor from around the world, reducing prices and encouraging cross fertilization.  Again, this makes sense to me, as far as it goes.  The world is more interconnected, and poor and middle class people in developing countries such as the Philippines are doing better.

What we've seen, however, is that identity politics (reducing discrimination) and globalization, while both good ideas, left major societal needs unaddressed, and both took unhealthy turns.  The downsides of globalization have become apparent following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the 2003 Iraq War, Syria, Libya, Iran, the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing, and repeated financial bubbles, Brexit, the rise of right wing nationalism including Trump in the U.S., global warming, and the rise of China.  Globalization took an unhealthy turn toward forcing our ideology and rules upon other countries.

With regard to identity politics, there has been a backlash as predicted by Rorty.  Legitimate complaints of globalism have been met with accusations of racism.  Understandable concerns about the pace of cultural change have been met with similar charges.  Productive initiatives to reduce discrimination have devolved into vicious polarization, in my observation.

We've made enormous progress in some respects since Rorty wrote in 1998, but we're facing new challenges.   The brief Clintonian era of U.S. supremacy in ideology has clearly passed. Conditions are ripe for significant change of the kind that an Elizabeth Warren presidency would offer, in my opinion.   Rorty spoke against nihilism, and for hope.  His message is still relevant today.

Impeachment ... GROAN... But There's Hope!

Impeachment ... GROAN... But There's Hope!

1. This is the CIA fighting back against the Trump Administration (Barr) which is investigating likely intelligence community misdeeds with regard to Russiagate.
2. Trump decided to play hardball and investigate the Ukrainian involvement in Russiagate, and may have tried to use money (military aid) to accomplish this.
3. The CIA played hardball right back by concocting a dubious "whistleblower" exposure of Trump's Ukrainian investigation.  I say dubious and put "whistleblower" in quotes because the accusations are obviously partisan infighting as opposed to a lone whistleblower taking on the powers that be.  The CIA, the media, and the Democrats have been on the whistleblower's side from the start, even before the facts behind the accusations emerged.
4. The Democrats and the CIA are trying to obscure the intelligence community misdeeds with regard to Russiagate.  The open involvement of the CIA, the association with national security (as in Russiagate), and the heightened polarization (you are either for or against Trump regardless of the facts), are all designed to invalidate the investigation by the Trump Administration into the CIA's and FBI's handling of Russiagate.
5. The fact remains that the outstanding crimes were committed by the intelligence community, with the encouragement and at times funding from the Democrats.  Whereas both sides have reasonable cases with regard to the Ukrainian investigation, the same cannot be said for the original Russiagate.  Questionable anti-Russian / Cold War intelligence activity encouraged the coup in Ukraine and the subsequent fallout.  
6. The Russians have a much better foreign policy record in the 21st century as opposed to the Americans.
1. The Russians were right about WMDs and the advisability of toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003.  The U.S. was disastrously wrong.
2. In Libya and Syria, the U.S. misjudged badly, leaving these two regions in chaos and severely damaging U.S. credibility.  Russia judged correctly that they could help restore the peace in Syria through military assistance.
3. With regard to Iran and Yemen, the U.S. has sided with Saudi Arabia and taken an extreme position against Iran.  Russia has been more centrist with regard to the Sunni-Shia conflict, and has avoided the entanglements that have further damaged U.S. credibility in the region and around the world.
4. In Georgia, the U.S. (led by John McCain) did a lot of saber rattling after Russia moved in to protect Russian sympathizers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.  But ultimately the U.S. did nothing and Russia achieved its aims.
5. In Ukraine, the U.S. assisted in the replacement of a Russia friendly government by a U.S. friendly government.  However, Russia annexed Crimea and Russian sympathizers control eastern Ukraine.  Ukraine itself is unstable since the 2014 coup, and U.S. politics have been rendered unstable in part as a result of the fallout from this region as demonstrated in the current impeachment imbroglio.  
6. With regard to China, the U.S. is engaged in another Cold War, while the Russians have improved relations.
7. In large part because of U.S./U.K. blunders in the Middle East, Europe has been swamped with refugees and a populist backlash against governments throughout the region.  Brexit is the most obvious disastrous result of the failed policies of the U.S. and U.K. military-intelligence establishment.

(Update 11/3/2019:   Scott Ritter has a good summary of the Russian foreign policy success: 
Russia Isn't Getting the Recognition It Deserves on Syria)

In summary, the U.S. military-intelligence complex has a disastrous record over the last 20 years.  American influence has fallen dramatically, while the Russia has a record of success, strength, and prudence (e.g. Iran) in comparison.  Rather than acknowledge their mistakes, the political-intelligence establishment in the U.S. has doubled down on Russia being the root of our problems, including the election of Trump in 2016.  

The hope is that a restoration of centrist leadership (a la Clinton, Bush, and Obama) will lead to a restoration of American power to dealing with Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East, China, Venezuela, etc.  We refuse to acknowledge that Russian success vis-a-vis the United States is a result of their doing better with the facts (Iraq 2003) and being more realistic on the battlefield (Syria, Georgia, Crimea, eastern Ukraine) and in the diplomatic arena (Iran, China).  The CIA's job is to advance American interests around the world and they have failed miserably, yet they are now moving more forcefully into domestic politics.

Trump, on the other hand, has no coherent strategy for dealing with foreign affairs.  He's hired and fired neo-con monster John Bolton, and still works closely with neo-con leaders such as Pompeo and Barr.  He's needed their inside help to fight Russiagate and now Ukrainegate.  He's in a desperate fight to do what?  Protect himself from a CIA led coup.

My guess is that impeachment proceedings will end in stalemate.  Despite the apparent strength of the CIA/media/Democratic position, the Trump Republicans and their allies will not be easily defeated in such a short time.  Here are some related thoughts:

• Impeachment will be unpopular with U.S. voters.  It's a distraction from the issues we care about.  Public squabbling amongst intelligence agencies and senior politicians will result in the airing of a lot of dirty laundry, ultimately helping Trump's populist stance and harming the centrist Democrats.
• Democrats have the mainstream media on their side in unprecedented fashion.  Thus, there may be high confidence (overconfidence?) by the Democrats and their CIA allies that they will prevail in the court of public opinion.
• The presidential battle will be closely contested, with the populist unpopularity of impeachment somewhat offsetting the mainstream media support for the Democrats.
• The state of the economy will be important, as always, to the incumbent's prospects for reelection.  An additional factor this election, however, is that Trump has a reputation as an economic populist -- who poses a challenge to the economic status quo.  
• If the Democrats nominate a populist such as Elizabeth Warren, they will be in position to benefit from economic weakness.  Economic strength would favor Trump in this case.
• If the Democrats nominate a status quo figure such as Biden, Republicans will be in a better position to benefit from economic weakness.  Economic strength would favor Biden in this case.
• I think the Dems will nominate Warren, who is the only plausible candidate to bridge the Clinton-Sanders divide that plagues the party.  So Dems will be hoping for economic weakness (recession) in 2020.  They can blame this on Trump without having to defend their own questionable ties to the economic status quo.
• The military-intelligence community will be wary of a potential Warren presidency, as well as being divided internally.  Once impeachment fails in the Senate, they will recede from the public view, somewhat chastened.  They have no viable political path forward unless Biden (or another from the Clinton camp) wins the nomination.
• The mainstream media will endorse Warren as an alternative to Trump.
• Many of the wealthy will be against a potential Warren presidency.  But they will be split between pro and anti Trump factions, with more being anti-Trump.
• Trump will try to boost the stock market and the economy by getting a trade agreement with China.  Ironically, this could be discouraged by the intelligence community, engaged as it is at the moment in intense infighting.  Also, Dems and the mainstream media will be reluctant to support such as a measure during the impeachment battle and its aftermath.  And China will be reluctant to make a deal with Trump, given his hostility and unreliability. Thus, Trump's efforts to jumpstart the economy will fail and the country will slip into recession.
• Warren will win the presidency, and the country will get a fresh start in economic and foreign policy affairs.