Sounds like money laundering to me.

Kompromat, kompromat, kompromat!

"witting, unwitting or half-witting" assets.

That got me thinking about James Watson, of DNA fame and in the last 10 years for some infamy on account of some very unscientific racist rantings. Cold Spring Harbor recently stripped Watson of his honorary titles on account of the latter. Was Watson being used by the Russians to stir up racial tensions in the US and UK?

Watson put his Nobel Prize medal up for auction in 2014 (another scientific first for Watson). The buyer was Alisher Usmanov, one of the top 10 Russian oligarchs, who paid 4.8 million dollars for the bauble. Usmanov promptly returned 4.1 million to Watson (deducting the auction fee).

For practical purposes, Usmanov gave Watson 4.1 million dollars. Why would he do this? A wee quid pro quo for race baiting services rendered? Usmanov was added to the US Russia sanctions list earlier this month.

All I can say is Verrrry interesting. ;-)

That would be a good theory but for the fact that Trump doesn't give two shits -- and never has -- about anything/anyone not named "Trump," and still he'd sacrifice some of them if it meant saving himself.

I suspect you know this along with multiple others who post here, but just a quick reminder that the "shutdown" isn't about the "beloved wall." The only concrete walls and steel slats that Benedict Donald is worried about are of the ADX Florence variety. :)

Bernstein ends by saying, paraphrasing: "this stuff is coming out due to real reporting of real facts".

So begins America-at-large starting to grapple with the idea their POTUS and related Repubs are potentially Russian assets. As Bernstein says: "witting, unwitting or half-witting" assets.

A. I wasn't speaking of your project; I was speaking of you. Are you and OD interchangeable?

B. You haven't a clue about how I vote or what I think, believe, practice, etc., except that it doesn't include assumptions about groups or any prejudices I become aware of in myself and work to stamp out.

C. Get three people to describe an accident they all witnessed and then talk to me about a unitary reality.

Carry on.

Ah, the everybody does it, why are you picking on me? defense. I didn't know that was a thing outside elementary schoolyards. If name-calling is good enough for fearmongers and partisan hacks, then, by golly, it is OK for you. Got it.

You evidently don't read the screeds you write. Sure, it's not about the parties; it's about the money. Both push this lesser-evil worldview, though, right? It is all about power and the flow of money, right? No one in either party has constructive ideas they try to implement when in office, right? Never judge a person by her or his actions/votes or the content of his or her character, right? That's too confusing and rather blurs the message, right?

Now, a small money candidate, by implication, is above the fray and may actually have some redeeming qualities. Of course if one has a party affiliation, you will lump her or him right in with the rest of "them." Gone are the redeeming qualities, because the box you've constructed doesn't allow for differences of opinion among individuals.

It must get pretty damn lonely in your own private world. Carry on.

T. Gabbard, however, looks like the Jill Stein of 2020 - if she runs as a Dem vs. 3rd party I think she'll evaporate quickly.

Rep. Eric Swalwell retweeted Greg Miller and said:

Destruction of evidence is consciousness of guilt. At this point please show me evidence that @realDonaldTrump is not working for Russia

Blotus as Russian Asset is now being discussed in MSM - we're there. We've crossed the line from INCONCEIVABLE to "could he be?"

Then this evening WaPo drops a story that Blotus has kept his official meetings with Putin off the record, going so far in one case to take the transcripts of the meeting from the translator. He kept the content of these meetings from his own Cabinet (such as it is). He claimed to have reached various "agreements" with Putin in these one-on-one meetings but there is no record of them so we don't know what the agreements were.

As many are noting, from Day 1 the behaviors of Blotus and his enablers have been the behaviors of guilty people.

Oh, and don't forget to work at getting big money out of politics legislatively.

As long as we're being prescriptive here, you should really rethink this group-tarring nonsense and take a reality-based stance. Try dealing with individuals, since greed, avarice, mendacity, and all the rest of the negative social traits an individual might have are not connected in any way with political affiliation or any other subcategory or box we like to sort humans into. Evil is a very individual practice.

Affiliating with a major political party does not correlate to having or not having integrity, altruism, or any other positive social trait an individual might have. To be non-affiliated and/or accept small donations only is absolutely no guarantee of being upstanding, forthright, or sharing common values with constituents.

Try helping get undesirable individuals out of office. Try working to get desirable candidates into office. Believing that parties are the problem is your prerogative, but regarding them as some sort of monolithic entity doesn't appear to be a winning strategy for improving the general welfare of the nation. The real world is nowhere near as categorical as you appear to imagine.

Newly declared:

Julian Castro
Tulsi Gabbard

-CW

The FBI opened a counter intelligence investigation into American PRESIDENT Trump, (separate from the one Mueller is conducting) because they were afraid based on his behavior and statements, that he was either unwittingly or knowingly acting as a Russian agent!

How extraordinary is this getting to be???

Speaking of ancient political history, I recall Jerry Brown was the subject of a Carson Era Carnac the Great bit. Something along the lines of:

A: Brown's bag.

Q: What was Linda Rondstadt found sleeping in?

Context: The two were a romantic item for a while and went on a camping trip.

l cannot recall the muttered curse.