Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary
handling restrictions arrived at the White House.
Sent by courier from
the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown
to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.
Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing
deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and
discredit the U.S. presidential race.
But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific
instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at
least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her
opponent, Donald Trump.
At that point, the outlines of the Russian assault on the U.S.
election were increasingly apparent.
Hackers with ties to Russian
intelligence services had been rummaging through Democratic Party
computer networks, as well as some Republican systems, for more than a
year. In July, the FBI had opened an investigation of contacts between
Russian officials and Trump associates. And on July 22, nearly 20,000
emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee were dumped online
by WikiLeaks.
Election Hackers Altered Voter Rolls, Stole Private Data, Officials Say
Massimo Calabresi - Jun 22, 2017
The hacking of state and local election databases in 2016 was more extensive than previously reported, including at least one successful attempt to alter voter information, and the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers, current and former officials tell TIME.
In one case, investigators found there had been a manipulation of voter data in a county database but the alterations were discovered and rectified, two sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Investigators have not identified whether the hackers in that case were Russian agents.
The fact that private data was stolen from states is separately providing investigators a previously unreported line of inquiry in the probes into Russian attempts to influence the election. In Illinois, more than 90% of the nearly 90,000 records stolen by Russian state actors contained drivers license numbers, and a quarter contained the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, according to Ken Menzel, the General Counsel of the State Board of Elections.
Congressional investigators are probing whether any of this stolen private information made its way to the Trump campaign, two sources familiar with the investigations tell TIME.
“If any campaign, Trump or otherwise, used inappropriate data the questions are, How did they get it? From whom? And with what level of knowledge?” the former top Democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, Michael Bahar, tells TIME. “That is a crux of the investigation."
In
a tone that would become familiar in the following months, Republicans
and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) allowed Russia to
interfere in the election to help Trump by expressing skepticism about
the intelligence that Russia was meddling in the 2016 presidential
election.
In a tone that would become familiar in the following months,
Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) allowed
Russia to interfere in the election to help Trump by expressing
skepticism about the intelligence that Russia was meddling in the 2016
presidential election.
“The Dems were, ‘Hey, we have to tell the public,’ ” recalled one
participant. But Republicans resisted, arguing that to warn the public
that the election was under attack would further Russia’s aim of sapping
confidence in the system.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went further,
officials said, voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence
truly supported the White House’s claims. Through a spokeswoman,
McConnell declined to comment, citing the secrecy of that meeting.
Key Democrats were stunned by the GOP response and
exasperated that the White House seemed willing to let Republican
opposition block any pre-election move.
Sen. McConnell’s doubt of the intelligence is the same tactic that
has been used by Trump and his administration since the Russia scandal
heated up. The other problem is that the Obama White House let McConnell
block them and did nothing. Looking back with 20/20 perspective, it is
easy to say that Obama should have issued a warning about Russian
election meddling without the Republicans on board, but his concern that
the Russia issue would turn into a partisan one that could destroy the
integrity of the election was legitimate.
What the now former president couldn’t have known was that he was
facing a no-win situation. The integrity of this election was going be
damaged no matter what because the Russians had already acted.
Mitch McConnell made sure that this election ended up damaged, and
the process lost credibility by doubting the intelligence about Russian
election interference.
Republicans sold out their country and democracy to win an election.
Russia interfered with the election, and Sen. McConnell allowed them to
get away with it because it helped him and his party.
The Russia scandal goes beyond Trump, and if Americans are going to
prevent a future on our democracy, they must remove Russia enabling
Republicans like Mitch McConnell from their positions of power.
A unionized iron worker is taking on Paul Ryan in a 2018 showdown in
Wisconsin. Randy Bryce's every man charm has taken the political world by
storm, and could be the key to refreshing the Democratic Party. Ring of
Fire's Josh Gay discusses how.
If Trump made an illegal deal with the Russians, Robert Mueller wants to
find out. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.
“In addition to investigating whether or not Donald Trump committed
obstruction of justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey,
special counsel Robert Mueller is also reportedly investigating “money
laundering by Trump associates,” the New York Times reports.
The Times report corroborates a separate bombshell Washington Post
article, published Wednesday, that said in addition to possible
obstruction, investigators are also “looking for any evidence of
possible financial crimes among Trump associates.”
“A former senior official said Mr. Mueller’s investigation was looking
at money laundering by Trump associates,” a source told the Times. “The
suspicion is that any cooperation with Russian officials would most
likely have been done in exchange for some kind of financial payoff, and
that there would have been an effort to hide the payoffs, most likely
by routing them through offshore banking centers.”
"AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Georgia, where the Republicans
have pulled off a victory in the most expensive congressional race in
history. In a special election in Georgia’s 6th District, Republican
Karen Handel won nearly 53 percent of the vote, defeating her
challenger, Democrat Jon Ossoff, to be—to fill the seat left vacant
after Tom Price resigned to become secretary of health and human
services.
The candidates and outside groups spent more than $55 million
on the race, a record-shattering amount. While the seat has been held by
a Republican for decades, Democrats were hoping to pull off an upset in
the suburban Atlanta district where Trump’s approval rating
is just 35 percent. This marks the fourth congressional race Democrats
have lost since the election of Trump. Speaking Tuesday night, Handel
thanked Trump.”
Help make the Democratic party more progressive at: www.justicedemocrats.com
The establishment Democrat losing streak continues. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.
Lehman's Hardware is a retail store located in Kidron, Ohio.
Originally specializing in products used by the Amish community, it has become known worldwide as a source for non-electric goods.
The 35,000 square foot facility bills itself as a "Low Tech Superstore" and a "Purveyor of Historical Technology," both of which are reflected in their motto, "Simple Products for a Simpler Life."
The quarter mile long structure is made up of the remnants of a log cabin and three pre-Civil War buildings, including a hand-hewn barn. It is also a popular tourist destination.
Lehman's also maintains a smaller, more traditional hardware store in Mount Hope, Ohio, where their Amish customers may shop with less interference from curious tourists. In addition to the two stores, there is also a catalog and online business.
Trump’s budget calls for sharply reducing funding for programs that
shelter the poor and combat homelessness — with a notable exception: It
leaves intact a type of federal housing subsidy that is paid directly to
private landlords.
One of those landlords is Trump himself, who
earns millions of dollars each year as a part-owner of Starrett City,
the nation’s largest subsidized housing complex. Trump’s 4 percent stake
in the Brooklyn complex earned him at least $5 million between January
of last year and April 15, according to his recent financial disclosure.
It's because it was a heavily Republican district, and Republican
voters, just like the politicians they elect, always put party before
country. You couldn't get most southern Republicans to vote for any
Democrat over any Republican with a car battery and wet alligator clips.
They just don't fucking do it. You could run Josef Stalin, Pol Pot,
Genghis Khan, or a big old cow shit in the South and it would win
elections in a lot of districts. I'm not kidding. If you dressed
someone up in a cow shit costume and ran a campaign as "Vote Cow Shit in
2018. I Love Guns, Jesus, and Murka, and Fuck Democrats", then Cow Shit
would win elections all over the south in landslides. LANDSLIDES.
Look at my handle. Pun on yellow dog Democrat. You know the origin
of that, don't you? When the Democratic Party was conservative and
racist, you couldn't get a Republican elected in the South, ever. When
the parties traded places with respect to ideology, southern voters
flipped and now it's just the reverse. And it's much, much, much worse
with Fox News and right wing hate radio rationalizing all their dumbass
votes and the awful fucking bigotry.
It's the fucking South, y'all. When you have a region full of
people waving flags over a failed rebellion that got the region
shitstomped over 150 years ago, how the hell can you expect rational
behavior? I was born in Georgia. Raised in Tennessee. I know my
people, and they are fucked up. Clannish and fucked up. They're
wonderful people if they recognize you as their own, and are the worst
shitheads on earth if they don't. You don't need Russian intervention
or hacked voting machines in the South for even a mean, obnoxious,
self-righteous, bigoted, judgmental, out of touch asshole like Karen
Handel to win. All you have to do is put an (R) beside her name and
stand back. It's a goddamn miracle that Ossoff was within 20% in that
district.
So damn, just stop it with the voting machines bullshit. You want
to know the main reason we lost? Because of 40% voter turnout. If
Democrats and/or progressives - everyone here obviously excepted - would
get off their stupid asses and just go vote, we'd win a lot more
elections and even maybe pull an upset here and there. The higher the
turnout, the better Democrats do. I don't know what the solution to that
is. Sometimes I think we need to put a shock collar around every
progressive in the country and zap the fuck out of them until they go
goddamn VOTE. Fuck, I'm disgusted with tonight.
Republicans in Washington, D.C. might be cancelling their month-long
August vacation because they just haven’t accomplished enough of their
agenda. Keep in mind, that agenda involves doing away with safety
regulations, cutting taxes for millionaires, and taking healthcare away
from millions of American citizens. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins
discusses this.
Donald Trump opened a cabinet meeting by inviting the media in to hear
the important business of the country.
What did the country hear?
First,
Trump took time to praise himself, saying that “nobody would have
believed” how many jobs were created in the last seven months … which
was less than the jobs created in the previous seven months.
And that
the papers were full of “big stories” about new mines opening.
There was also a self-celebration of Trump’s great achievements as a
signer of legislation. Which are the greatest. The most ever.
It may be
hard to think of a single piece of substantive legislation that bears
Trump’s scrawl, but that’s because you’re not thinking hard enough.
Besides, every tweet now counts as legislation.
What’s passing that
Lilly Ledbetter Act next to calling Comey a coward from the toasty
comfort of your bed?
Once Trump got tired of hearing himself explain how great he was, it was
time to share the duty with others. That big smacking sound was each
Trump appointee taking his or her turn at telling Trump what a wonderful
man he is, how right he is about everything, and how much everyone
loves him.
A good-sized chunk of Representative Steve Scalise's congressional career has been devoted to making guns easier to get. Scalise, a Louisiana Republican who is the Majority Whip in the House of Representatives, was one of five victims
shot by James T. Hodgkinson in Alexandria, Virginia. The wannabe mass
murderer was carrying a semiautomatic rifle and a pistol. Hodgkinson was
gunned
down and killed by Capitol police, but he had apparently come to the
baseball field to specifically take out Republicans. A motivation beyond
a deranged vision of how to achieve progressive goals hasn't been
announced.
Scalise is proudly, even obnoxiously devoted to the Second Amendment. He
has an A+ rating from the NRA and a 100% pro-gun voting record, and he
has, on many occasions, spoken against any laws that might even
minimally effect the free acquisition of all kinds of guns, including
the kind of rifle used today on him.
On April 25, 2013, Scalise made a floor speech where
he used the Sandy Hook massacre of children to support the rights of
gun owners. "I think they counted over 40 different laws that were
broken by the Sandy Hook murderer," Scalise said. "Then somebody is
going to tell you that one more law, which makes it harder for
law-abiding citizens to get a gun, would have stopped him from doing
that." The congressman doesn't mention that a law banning assault
weapons would have actually slowed down Adam Lanza. And we're not even
allowed to discuss banning handguns anymore, which would have done a
great deal to stop the bloodshed.
Scalise co-sponsored a resolution that praised the Supreme Court for its Heller decision that eliminated limits on gun ownership in Washington, D.C. Prior to the decision, he had co-sponsored a bill that would have done the same thing, including repealing the ban on semiautomatic guns. And he co-wrote a 2015 letter
to the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
condemning a reclassification of a kind of bullet. In the letter, he
talks about the "the failed 'Assault Weapons Ban.'"
A more substantial action was that he voted to overturn
President Obama's rule that prevented people who had been determined to
be mentally ill from purchasing guns. I'd also bet that Scalise
supports laws that allow people arrested for domestic violence to retain
their guns. Hodgkinson had been charged several times for that kind of assault.
Look, this isn't a "blame the victim" type of thing. There is nothing
that Steve Scalise did today that brought on the shooting. And I hope he
and all the other victims recover fully. But if a pig is gonna build a
house out of straw, he shouldn't be too shocked when a wolf comes along
to blow it down. It'd be something like a miracle if this caused
Scalise to reconsider his blind devotion to the NRA and its perverse
version of the Second Amendment.
More likely, though, it will just make him and his firearms-mad
colleagues double-down and demand even more guns and fewer restrictions.
And they will blame Kathy Griffin, Shakespeare in the Park, Black Lives
Matter, angry liberals, and anyone and anything for this rather than
take a single second to look in the hospital mirror to ask what they
could do differently.
Like maybe stop talking romantically about using guns to solve problems.
As details emerge from Senate Republicans’ backroom deliberations to
write a single bill repealing Obamacare, defunding Medicaid and
deregulating health insurance, it's clear that virtually no American
household—apart from the very rich—would be immune from fiscally painful
and medically harsh consequences if the GOP gets a bill to the
president’s desk.
For the past month, an 11man committee appointed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, has been meeting in secret
to fine-tune the House-passed Obamacare repeal legislation. They are
not starting anew, but are polishing a bill that will leave 15-20
million people without health care, prompt higher insurance and medical
costs for all but the youngest adults, freeze and shrink state-run
Medicaid (which now covers 45 percent of the children in rural America), and defund Planned Parenthood. This is according to analyses by the Congressional Budget Office, Kaiser Family Foundation and others.
Even the pro-corporate Washington Post editorial board has called out the GOP for its chaos-creating prescriptions, writing that
they are “motivated to solve a problem that does not exist—saving a
health-care system supposedly on the path to inevitable collapse by
repealing and replacing Obamacare.” None of that seems to matter to
McConnell, who wants to pass the as-yet-unreleased bill before the
Senate’s July 4 recess. While defections from the GOP’s far right or few moderates
could thwart any Senate bill’s passage, the White House has made it
clear it wants McConnell to pass something the president can sign.
What’s
unfolding in Washington right now is appalling. Beyond the cowardly
political tactics, the GOP is literally playing with the lives and
livelihoods of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Everyone ages, and
many will get sick and develop chronic illness and disease. The
consequences can be devastating if the GOP shreds medical safety nets
for the poor and allows the insurance industry to charge more yet
deliver less health security in myriad ways.
What follows are 10 takeaways from the Senate’s Obamacare repeal process.
1. McConnell’s skullduggery is back.
As Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services from 2015 to 2017, wrote in a Washington Post column Saturday,
only 8 percent of the public supported passage of the House’s Obamacare
repeal bill (which also slashed Medicaid and included major tax cuts
for the rich). He could have told senators to fix Obamacare’s problems,
such as allowing small states to form insurance pools.
“Instead,
McConnell put a plan in place to pass something close to the House bill
using three simple tools: sabotage, speed and secrecy,” Slavitt wrote.
“He formed a committee to meet secretly, hold no hearings, create a
fast-track process and pressure Senate skeptics with backroom deals.”
Trump just wants it done, Politico.com reported. “He’s definitely leaving it to Mitch to lead. But he very much wants it to happen,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, told Politico.
2. Congressional chaos is having its desired effect—2018 premiums to rise.
The GOP is not just sending mixed signals about what they may do to
one-sixth of the U.S. economy. They are intentionally provoking insurers
to raise their prices for 2018 as a pretext to pass their legislation.
This was cited in a Washington Post editorial,
“The GOP’s Obamacare Sabotage Continues,” in which the editorial board
was unusually clear-eyed. “‘Insurers have made clear the lack of
certainty is causing 2018 proposed premiums to rise significantly,’
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) said Thursday, arguing that Congress should step in.” That’s creating a problem to fit a solution.
3. Meanwhile Trump’s team is also embracing more chaos. The Trump team is doing everything it can not to enforce Obamacare, such as “lax enforcement of the individual mandate
to purchase health insurance, inadequate efforts to enroll more people
in coverage and other gratuitous subversions of the finely tuned system
Obamacare sought to create,” the same Post editorial said. As significant, the White House is refusing to commit to paying 2018 Obamacare subsidies for millions, according to Vox.com,
which reported that Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price
wouldn’t even tell a U.S. Senate committee what the administration’s
plans were.
4. Against this backdrop, the Senate is 'making progress.' That’s
the word from a handful of center-right Republicans who have been shown
glimpses of what’s going on behind closed doors—as if reversing one or
two planks of the House bill is supposed to be a sign of moderation.
That is absurd. Moreover, what the Senate is said to be doing is
terrible.
For example, restoring Obamacare’s pre-existing condition
rule—which requires insurers to sell people policies—but without cost
controls or coverage requirements. Last month’s Congressional Budget
Office analysis
of the House-passed bill said a wide swath of the public “would be
unable to purchase comprehensive coverage with premiums close to those
under current law and might not be able to purchase coverage at all.”
Moreover, many policies are likely to cover less once minimum coverage
standards are deregulated.
5. The young will pay less, but everyone else won’t. The only people who stand to benefit, the New York Times reported,
are those least likely to get sick. “The budget office [CBO] did note
that the House bill would potentially lead to lower prices, especially
for younger and healthier people,” it said. “But the budget office also
warned that markets in states that allowed insurers to charge higher
premiums for people with pre-existing conditions—whether high blood
pressure, a one-time visit to a specialist or cancer.” This is what
deregulation of the insurance industry will bring. The industry will go
back to creating more barriers between patients and doctors.
6. Many policies will only be used for hospitalization.
Other analyses include scenarios where people will see deductibles rise
to levels where they will pay for most care until a serious emergency
requiring hospital care arises. As the Times wrote,
that can amount to a major fiscal burden.
“Millions of people could
also wind up with little choice but to buy cheap plans that provided
minimal coverage in states that opted out of requiring insurers to cover
maternity care, mental health and addiction treatment or rehabilitation
services, among other services required under the Affordable Care Act.
Consumers who could not afford high premiums would wind up with enormous
out-of-pocket medical expenses.”
7. Medicaid is going to be frozen, justified by big lies. Another detail that’s leaked out of the Senate drafting sessions is that it’s not a question whether
Medicaid will see $800 billion in reduced spending and 14 million fewer
recipients during the next decade, as the House bill laid out. Rather
it is a question of how fast the Medicaid rollback will be. The Hill reports there’s been debate whether it will be three years or seven years. Vox.com also reports
that the Senate wants to institute an approach that could lead to
sharper funding cuts than the House: more frequent revisions to Medicaid
reimbursement rates.
The White House and GOP talking points on this are a series of lies. HHS Secretary Price told
a Senate committee, “We are trying to decrease the number of
uninsured,” after the CBO estimated that 23 million people would lose
insurance. Trump has said he will not touch Medicare—even though
Medicaid pays for nursing home care in that program. And Republicans
keep saying this is not spending cuts, but slower spending increases.
“What the defenders of this claim—ranging from Karl Rove to Sally Pipes—have insisted is that this is a cut to the growth rate, not cuts to the existing program,” wrote
health policy blogger Emma Sandoe. “The reality is that states will
have to reduce the number of services they provide or reduce the types
of people that can enroll as inflation and increased costs in medical
services rise.”
8. This is a war on government and on the poor. What the GOP is trying to do is not just go after Obamacare, but dismantle safety nets dating back to the 1960s. As Sandoe noted,
“The GOP has campaigned for decades on the idea that the social welfare
state is bloated and that the oversized growth of the welfare state
needs to be trimmed. The GOP should embrace the idea of calling
per-capita caps and block grants cuts. From a policy perspective, the
goal of the per-capita caps and block grants is to reduce the size and
scope of the program.”
9. Republicans are pursuing this despite vast opposition.
Recent polls show safety nets are incredibly popular while the GOP’s
American Health Care Act is not. On Medicaid alone, a Kaiser Family
Foundation poll by Democrats and Republicans opposed cutting its expansion and changing its financing structure. “Manyotherpolls
show that the majority of voters have favorable views of Medicaid,
coming close to the level of support for Medicare,” Sandoe wrote.
“Telling is that a Quinnipiac poll found that Republicans oppose cuts to
Medicaid. This is one possible reason that the latest [GOP] messaging
appears to be focused on reframing the cuts as minimal. Meanwhile, the
AHCA has polled from 17–21 percent by Quinnipiac and only 8 percent think that the Senate should pass these reforms without changes.”
10. If this passes, a colossal downward spiral will ensue.
The impact of the AHCA, if passed, is not just going to be fiscal—in
terms of increased out-of-pocket costs for those with insurance
policies. As the Times reported,
people age 50 and older, and “millions of middle- and working-class
Americans” will once again be trapped in their jobs because they will be
unable to pay for coverage. “The Affordable Care Act has enabled many
of those workers to get transitional coverage that provides a bridge to
the next phase of their lives—a stopgap to get health insurance if they
leave a job, are laid off, start a business or retire early.”
For
those too poor to buy insurance, Medicaid will contract and likely be
forced to focus on emergency and crisis care, rather than prevention.
Rationing care will likely ensue, unless states step in with raising
revenues to offset federal cutbacks. Safety nets are likely to roll
backwards, landing somewhere between where they are now and where they
were before Obamacare’s reforms took effect.
McConnell’s Fast Track
As Axios.com reported,
McConnell is hoping to finalize the Senate’s legislation this week,
because the Congressional Budget Office will need two weeks to “score”
it—the Washington term for assessing its financial and programmatic
impacts—if it is to come up for a Senate floor vote before the July 4
break. While it's possible that McConnell could present a bill without
that analysis, it is likely that more details will emerge in coming
days.
At that point, Republicans will surely feel the full wrath
of voters who aren’t going to have anything positive to say if their
health care is trashed, or if the GOP tries to blame Obama and the
Democrats for market chaos they have worsened, not diminished.
Trump will not testify before Congress under oath, a development that
legal experts say was expected but that illustrates the pitfalls of the
president’s tendency to shoot from the hip in public remarks.
Trump
said at a Friday press conference that would “100%” agree to give sworn
testimony in response to former FBI director James Comey’s allegations
last week.
On Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the
president was “specifically asked whether or not he would talk to
Director Mueller,” the special counsel investigating alleged Russian
election meddling, under oath.
In fact, Trump was asked generally about
giving sworn testimony rebutting Comey’s allegations that the president
asked him to pledge loyalty and to ease up on the FBI’s investigation
into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Asked a follow-up
about Mueller specifically, the president said he would speak with him
as well.
Congressional Democrats were giddy at the prospect of grilling
Trump under oath, but experts say that testimony was probably never
going to happen. “I think that was expected,” said national security
attorney Bradley Moss. “Having the President testify before Congress
raises significant separation of powers concerns. The last to do it was
Gerald Ford and all others since have adamantly refused.”
But Moss and
his law partner Mark Zaid say the president didn’t seem aware of that
fact during his remarks on Friday. “This Presidency is marked like none
other by a White House tendency to reinterpret the specific words of the
President. Every time that happens its credibility suffers,” Zaid said
in an email.
You’ll all be familiar with the PC, the ubiquitous x86-powered
workhorse of desktop and portable computing. All modern PC's are
descendants of the original from IBM, the model 5150 which made its
debut in August 1981. This 8088-CPU-driven machine was expensive and
arguably not as accomplished as its competitors, yet became an instant
commercial success.
The genesis of its principal operating system is famous in providing
the foundation of Microsoft’s huge success. They had bought Seattle
Computer Products’ 86-DOS, which they then fashioned into the first
release version of IBM’s PC-DOS. And for those interested in these early
PC operating systems there is a new insight to be found, in the form of
a pre-release version of PC-DOS 1.0 that has found its way into the hands of OS/2 Museum.
Sadly they don’t show us the diskette itself, but we are told it is
the single-sided 160K 5.25″ variety that would have been the standard on
these early PCs. We say “the standard” rather than “standard” because a
floppy drive was an optional extra on a 5150, the most basic model
would have used cassette tape as a storage medium.
The disk is bootable, and indeed we can all have a play with its contents due to the magic of emulation.
The dates on the files reveal a date of June 1981, so this is
definitely a pre-release version and several months older than the
previous oldest known PC-DOS version. They detail an array of
differences between this disk and the DOS we might recognize, perhaps
the most surprising of which is that even at this late stage it lacks
support for .EXE executables.
You will probably never choose to run this DOS version on your PC,
but it is an extremely interesting and important missing link between
surviving 86-DOS and PC-DOS versions. It also has the interesting
feature of being the oldest so-far-found operating system created
specifically for the PC.
I don't have much to add to the Comey hearing. It's become clear that depending on your political affiliation,
you either saw a former FBI director call Trump a liar and lay the
groundwork for an obstruction of justice case (while not so subtly
hinting that Attorney General Jeff Sessions can't be trusted) or you saw
some shit about Hillary Clinton's emails, and that's all that matters
to you.
The objective truth is that Democrats stayed focused on
the serious issue of Russian interference with American elections -
which could bite either party in the ass at any given moment - while
Republicans spent their time focusing on Hillary Clinton and the
occasional semantical argument about whether Trump directly
told Comey to stop the Russian investigation.
That's the plain and
simple reality of the situation, but good fucking luck explaining to
that a not insignificant portion of the population who doesn't even
think the Russian situation is real. (On the Right or Left.)
So here's veteran Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, more famously known for being the creative force behind HBO's The Wire, along with writing Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Long story short, Simon knows his shit, and his insights on the Comey hearing are worth reading.
Thread:
A year with some good detectives taught me that often WHAT ISN'T SAID
is the actual tell. And note what isn't discussed between....
...Trump
and Comey. At no point does Trump make any concerted effort to discern
whether or not Russia did in fact attempt to interfere...
...in
the election. Indeed, he notes that the claim has created a cloud over
his governance -- so he can scarcely say that it isn't...
...of
real concern to him; his concern is premised in this meeting. Yet, he
doesn't inquire as to what Comey and the FBI is yet discerning..
...about
Russia's role. He doesn't even do so as a means of disparaging the
claim. (i.e. "I'm sure you're finding out that there's nothing..
...to
the claims of Russian interference, right?" It. Doesn't. Come. Up. In
this regard, I am reminded of every innocent and guilty man...
...I
ever witnessed in an interrogation room. The innocent ask a multitude
of questions about what the detectives know, or why the cops...
...might
think X or Y or whether Z happened to the victim. The guilty forget to
inquire. They know. An old law school saw tells young...
...trial
lawyers to remind their clients to stay curious in front of a jury.
There's a famous tale of a murder case in which the body of...
...the
defendant's wife had not been recovered yet he was charged with the
killing. Defense attorney tells the jury in final argument...
..there's
been no crime and the supposed victim will walk through the courtroom
doors in 10 seconds. 30 seconds later the door remains...
...shut.
"Ok, she isn't coming today. But the point is all of you on jury
looked, and that my friends is reasonable doubt. You must acquit."
Jury
comes back in twenty minutes: Guilty. Attorney goes to the foreman: "I
thought I had you." Foreman: "You had me and ten others. But...
"...juror number 8 didn't look at the door, he looked at your client. And he didn't eye the door, he was examining his nails.
Even when he was completely alone with Comey, Trump didn't look at the door. He eyed his nails. It's an absolute tell.
Why?
Because Trump already knows that there is some fixed amount of Russian
interference on his behalf, and possibly, collusion as well.
And
now to pretend that won't be greeted with responses about Hillary
Clinton's emails or how I'm a neoliberal shill. What the hell is
happening out there?
After the testimony of fired FBI Director James Comey on Thursday,
which raised as many questions as it answered, pundits and politicians
on both sides of the aisle are left to analyze and debate what it all
meant. The information given to the American public did not, however,
end with Comey’s testimony.
On Tuesday, new testimony will be presented to the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science by
Trump-appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions has recently
come under fire for his failure to disclose secret meetings with Russian
government operatives in his requests for security clearance as
attorney general. Questioning, however, will apparently not focus on
those meetings, nor will it focus on matters related to commerce or
science.
‘The hearing is supposed to focus on the 2017 budget request for the
Department of Justice. But Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the senior
Democrat on the overall Appropriations Committee and a member of the
Judiciary Committee, said Thursday he will press Sessions about his role
in President Trump’s May decision to fire Comey as FBI director.’
While Trump’s spokespeople insisted that the president fired James
Comey on the recommendations of Attorney General Sessions and Deputy
Attorney General Rosenstein, Trump later denied that to Lester Holt
during a televised interview in which he insisted that he alone made the
decision to fire Comey.
The rapid turnaround in the narrative came after questions were
raised as to why Sessions was involved in decisions about Comey at all,
considering that Comey was in the process of investigating the
president’s campaign team for collusion with Russia and Sessions had recused himself from all decision involving that investigation after his undisclosed meetings with Russian government officials became public.
The country once again waits with bated breath for more details of this ongoing saga.
As the carnage of World War I widened, Barbara Tuchman recounts in
“The Guns of August,” a German leader asked a colleague, “How did it all
happen?”
“Ah,” replied the other, “if only one knew.”
A century later, there is no mystery to the carnage that Donald Trump has wrought.
Everything we have seen in these first 140
days—the splintering of the Western alliance, the grifter’s ethics he
and his family embody, the breathtaking ignorance of history,
geopolitics and government, the jaw-dropping egomania, the sheer
incompetence and contempt for democratic norms—was on full display from
the moment his campaign began. And that’s not just what Democrats
think—it’s what many prominent Republicans have said all along.
Once Trump was elected, his foes began to indulge in a series of
fantasies about how to prevent his ascendancy or how to remove him from
power. The electors should refuse to vote for him (which would have
thrown the election into the House, which would have chosen Trump); the
Cabinet and the vice-president should use the 25th Amendment to declare
him unable to exercise his duties (a scenario, as I have written here earlier,
that works just fine on TV melodramas like “24” and “Scandal”);
Congress should impeach him (which would require 20 GOP House members
and 19 Republican senators to join every Democratic lawmaker).
So this may be a good time to remember that in a key sense, Trump
happened because a well-established, real-life mechanism that was in the
best position to prevent a Trump presidency failed. That institution
was the Republican Party.
It is not entirely true that Trump engineered a “hostile takeover”
of the GOP, provided that the party is defined more broadly than elected
officials and party insiders. As Conor Friedersdorf wrote
last year in the Atlantic: “the elements of the party that sent
pro-Trump cues or Trump is at least acceptable’ signals to primary
voters—Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Ben Carson, Chris Christie,
Breitbart.com, The Drudge Report, The New York Post, Bill O’Reilly, Sean
Hannity, Ann Coulter, Jeff Sessions, Rick Scott, Jan Brewer, Joe
Arpaio—are simply more powerful, relative to National Review, Mitt
Romney, John McCain, and other ‘Trump is unacceptable’ forces, than
previously thought.”
What is true, however, is that the governing wing of the party was
fully aware that Trump was not to be trusted with the levers of power.
In January of last year, National Review devoted an entire issue to a
symposium where 22 prominent Republicans and conservatives detailed
their militant opposition to the candidate Texas Governor Rick Perry—who
is now Trump’s energy secretary—called “a cancer” on the American
political system. Until his nomination was all but assured, Trump had
the backing of a lone Republican senator, Jeff Sessions (who is now his
embattled attorney general).
More broadly, the whole idea of a disparate party coming together at
a convention was, for decades, rooted in the “vetting” process; those
experienced in the mechanics of politics and governments would decide
which of the candidates were best equipped to win an election and carry
out the party’s agenda in Washington. It’s beyond obvious that in the
decades since primaries replaced power brokers as the delegate-selecting
process, this role has attenuated. But it survives today as an
“In-Case-Of-Emergency-Break-Glass” tool. And the question is: Why didn’t
the Republican Party employ it?
Explanations have ranged from the fragmented nature of the
opposition—no early consensus choice as with George W. Bush in 2000—to
the underestimation of Trump’s appeal (the establishment candidates like
Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie spent their time and money
attacking each other, while Ted Cruz was constantly praising Trump,
hoping to ride in his wake when he collapsed).
But one often overlooked reason—and one for parties to remember if
they hope to avoid future Trumps—is that the rules of the GOP greatly
benefitted Trump. The party allows winner-take-all primaries by
congressional district or statewide— which in many states hugely
magnified Trump’s delegate totals. Trump won 32 percent of the South
Carolina vote, but all 50 delegates. He won 46 percent of the Florida
vote but all 99 delegates. He won 39 percent of the Illinois vote, but
80 percent of the 69 delegates. By contrast, Democrats—who abolished
winner-take-all primaries more than 40 years ago, insist on a
proportional system, much like parents cut the cake at a children’s
birthday party. The result is that an intensely motivated minority
cannot seize the lion’s share of delegates.
Another rule may well have stayed the hand of Republicans who saw in
Trump an unacceptable nominee. The Democratic Party gives more than 700
people seats as “super delegates.” Every senator, every House member,
every governor and a regiment of party officials are, by rule, unbound.
They make up 15 percent of the total votes at the convention.
Republicans only have some 150 “automatic” delegates—7 percent of the
total—and they must vote the way their state’s primary voters did. Thus, the whole idea of an emergency brake is almost nonexistent in the GOP.
Whether such tools should exist is a matter of debate. Many
Democrats on their party’s left disdain the idea of such backroom
politics (although toward the end of the 2016 primary season, Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ backers were urging super delegates to vote for him
on the grounds that the was the more electable candidate in November).
If a candidate comes to the convention with more votes than anyone else,
but with more voters having chosen a different candidate, what’s the
“right” thing for an unbound delegate to do? The famous assertion by
Edmund Burke, that “your representative owes you, not his industry only,
but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he
sacrifices it to your opinion” is very much out of fashion among the
populist movements on left and right.
But either by cluelessness or willful design, the Republican Party
had put itself in a position where one of the most significant functions
of a party—the “vetting” of its prospective nominee—was rendered
impotent.
And we are living with that institutional failure every day.
1. Hey, there, Americans who voted for Donald Trump for president. I
just wanna offer a hearty "thanks" for putting Trump in office. I mean, I
thought things would be crazy, but, seriously, I never expected Trump
to exceed expectations so quickly. Are you having fun yet? Are you tired
of winning? Man, I sure am. I can't handle all this winning.
That's what it is, right? Trump's wins? Having the former director of the FBI testify
under oath that Trump is a debased, immoral lying liar who lies so much
that you gotta be ready for more lies? That's winning, no?
Having an attorney general who perjured himself repeatedly? Winning so hard that it hurts! And bonus winning: Trump never asked
Comey about Russian interference in American elections. That means
Trump knew the answer already. Or he didn't give a shit because it
benefited him.
Goddamn, I don't see how you Trump voters can stand all this fucking winning.
You can brag about all these wins, Trump voters. All nearly 63 million
of you, every single one a racist, moron, hypocrite, and/or liar. You
own this. How's that feel? Is any of this getting through the Breitbart
haze and Fox "news" mist? When tens of millions of people lose their
health insurance and thousands of people die, that's on you, you dumbass motherfuckers. When another banking crisis wipes out your meager retirement funds or makes you lose your home, that's also on you.
You did this to the nation. You decided that you'd rather tear the
country down because of some delusion that the rich man was gonna make
you rich, too. You decided to ignore every single person, even
Republicans, who told you that you were flushing the United States down
the shitter, and you sure showed us. Yeah, you did.
You need to choke on your votes. You need to feel ashamed. When this is
over, even if we have to wait until 2019, you need to beg for
forgiveness from those of us who knew better.
But you won't. At this point, you could walk into a room where your
mother has been raped and murdered, see Trump standing there with a
bloody knife and a dripping dick, and you’d still say, “Why do libtards
hate America?”
2. Let me put on my English professor hat for a moment here. Trump told
Comey, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting
Flynn go.” Starting
with Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, to some on the right, this meant that
Trump was merely stating something that he was wishing might come true,
like Comey was a well he had tossed a penny into, with no real
expectation that it would.
And that might be right if Trump had told Comey, “I hope unicorns are
real.” But he didn’t. Instead, Trump asked everyone who was in the room
to leave him alone with Comey. And then he expressed this “hope.” If
you’re alone with your boss and your boss says, “I hope you can finish
those documents by morning,” there is an implicit “or else.”
To see this in any way other than as a command is to descend into
“depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is” levels of linguistic
fuckery. Fuck you, defenders of Trump. Everyone fucking knows what he
was saying. Let’s stop pretending that all of a sudden it’s an innocent,
earnest desire said theoretically, as if you have no control over it.
“I hope Grandma doesn’t have cancer” is a fuck of a lot different than
“I hope you don’t make me punch you.”
3. What Republicans are doing now is asking, “Who do you believe? The
President? Or your own lying ears?” Words don’t have meaning. To write
up a private meeting and then give those notes to the media is called
“leaking,” even though no classified information was involved.
“Vindication” apparently means “I don't fucking care what anyone says.”
4. A few things are clear. The President of the United States is a liar. It’s something that everyone around him has said about him. It’s something that he has said himself.
And if the president can’t be trusted, then why should anyone listen to
anything he says or promises? (See #1. Those fuckers will believe him
even when they're standing in their own radioactive shit in the middle
of a scorched wasteland.)
5. The vast majority of Americans who want Trump stopped,
who don’t believe in his agenda, who think something is incredibly
fucked here, are on their own. Democrats have virtually no power right
now. And the Republicans have no interest in holding him to account.
Nothing will happen unless Democrats take back at least the House in the
2018 midterm elections. Until then, we can look forward to nonstop
scandal and the cruel dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, two things
that will rapidly send the United States spiraling into chaos.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: What happens now is on
Republicans. Trump's attempt to influence the FBI investigation is way
worse, on so many levels, than a president lying under oath about
whether or not he got a blow job in the Oval Office. But that was enough
for Republicans to drag us through the Clinton impeachment, enough for
them to say that the rule of law must take precedent.
These hypocritical sows of the GOP, many of whom were there back in the
late 1990's, just roll around in their own mud and waste, telling the
rest of us to join them because they're not gonna stop.
Thanks to the hard work of Democratic pundit Scott Dworkin, it’s
beginning to look like every Republican politician has some kind of link
to Russia.
Over the last few months, Dworkin has revealed that several
Republican senators — including John McCain, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio —
have accepted money from Russian donors. He also produced evidence of
even more connections a couple of weeks ago that were shared by Palmer
Report.
In May, Dworkin found documents that link Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell to a super PAC that accepted $2.5 million from a
“pro-Putin Ukrainian businessman.” He shared photos of the documents on
Twitter, along with the following message:
‘#TrumpLeaks Docs: Mitch McConnell linked super PAC took $2.5
million from a pro-Putin Ukrainian businessman last election cycle
#trumprussia’
#TrumpLeaks Docs: Mitch McConnell linked super PAC took $2.5 million
from a pro-Putin Ukrainian businessman last election cycle #trumprussia
pic.twitter.com/V7HTq16fCR
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) May 21, 2017
*Scott Walker*
Dworkin also found that McConnell is not the only person who has
benefited from a pro-Putin businessman. He tweeted a couple of days
later photos of documents that show Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker also
received money from this “pro-Putin” individual during the last
election cycle.
MORE..Interesting read.!
Why they refuse to have Trump investigated.
We all knew that bunch was invested in Putin's scam, now we have the story.
When will the people of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, those
stalwart Trump voters who believe he’ll be bringing back coal jobs,
finally figure out they’ve been had?
History suggests it's
unrealistic to expect people to change their minds quickly. This is a
pattern that has held for centuries. In the 1600's the Salem witch trials
dragged on for eight long months before townsfolk finally began to
realize that they had been caught up in an irrational frenzy. More
recently, Americans proved during Watergate that they are reluctant to
turn on a president they have just elected despite mounds of evidence
incriminating him in scandalous practices. The Watergate burglary took
place on June 17, 1972. But it wasn't until April 30, 1973 – eleven
months later – that his popularity finally fell below 50 percent. This
was long after the Watergate burglars had been tried and convicted and
the FBI had confirmed news reports that the Republicans had played dirty
tricks on the Democrats during the campaign. Leaked testimony had even
showed that former Attorney General John Mitchell knew about the
break-in in advance. But not until Nixon fired White House Counsel John
Dean and White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman resigned
did a majority turn against the president. And even at that point
Nixon's poll numbers stood higher than Trump's. Nixon: 48 percent;
Trump: 42 percent.
It's not just conservative voters who are
reluctant to change their minds. So are liberals. After news reports
surfaced in the 1970s proving that John Kennedy was a serial philanderer
millions of his supporters refused to acknowledge it. A poll in 2013
show a majority of Americans still think of him as a good family man.
Thus
far not even many leading Democrats have been willing to come out in
favor of Trump's impeachment. Cory Booker, the liberal senator from New
Jersey, said this past week it's simply too soon. And if a guy like
Booker is not yet prepared to come straight out for impeachment, why
should we think Trump voters would be willing to? It is only just in the
last few weeks that polls show that a plurality of voters now favor
Trump's impeachment. (Twelve percent of self-identified Trump voters
share this view, which is remarkable.)
It's no mystery why people
are reluctant to change their minds. Social scientists have produced
hundreds of studies that explain the phenomenon. Rank partisanship is
only part of the answer. Mainly it’s that people don't like to admit
they were wrong, which is what they would be doing if they concede that
Trump is not up to the job. When Trump voters hear news that puts their
leader in an unfavorable light they experience cognitive dissonance. The
natural reaction to this is to deny the legitimacy of the source of the
news that they find upsetting. This is what explains the harsh attacks
on the liberal media. Those stories are literally making Trump voters
feel bad. As the Emory University social scientist Drew Westen
has demonstrated, people hearing information contrary to their beliefs
will cease giving it credence. This is not a decision we make at the
conscious level. Our brain makes it for us automatically.
So what
leads people to finally change their minds? One of the most convincing
explanations is provided by the Theory of Affective Intelligence. This
mouthful of a name refers to the tendency of people experiencing
cognitive dissonance to feel anxiety when they do so. As social
scientist George Marcus has explained, when the burden of hanging onto
an existing opinion becomes greater than the cost of changing it, we
begin to reconsider our commitments. What's the trigger? Anxiety. When
there's a mismatch between our views of the way the world works and
reality we grow anxious. This provokes us to make a fresh evaluation.
What
this research suggests is that we probably have a ways to go before
Trump voters are going to switch their opinions. While some are
evidently feeling buyers' remorse, a majority aren't. They're just not
anxious enough yet. Liberals need not worry. The very same headlines
that are giving them an upset stomach are making it more and more likely
Trump voters are also experiencing discomfort. What might push them
over the edge? One possibility would be a decision to follow through on
his threat to end subsidies to insurance companies under Obamacare,
leading to the collapse of the system, and the loss of coverage for
millions of Trump voters. That’s become more and more likely since the
Senate is apparently unable to pass the repeal and replace measure Trump
has been counting on. So liberals just have to wait and watch. Will
the story unfold like Watergate? Every day the answer increasingly
seems yes.
An optimist would argue that social media will
help push people to change their minds faster now than in the past. But
social media could also have the opposite effect. People living in a
bubble who get their media from biased sources online may be less likely
to encounter the contrary views that stimulate reflection than was
common, say, in the Nixon years when virtually all Americans watched the
mainstream network news shows. Eventually, one supposes, people will
catch on no matter how they consume news. Of late even Fox News viewers
have heard enough disturbing stories about Trump to begin to reconsider
their commitment to him. That is undoubtedly one reason why Nate
Silver found that so many Trump voters are reluctant to count themselves
among the strongest supporters.
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast
Inside
Russia Today’s American headquarters in Washington, across from the
receptionist’s desk stamped by a lime green “RT” banner, an ad starring
Ed Schultz and Larry King plays on a large screen TV.
Schultz and
King, whom he dwarfs, stand opposite one another, marveling at the
success of the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, which they
both agree is astounding. “Follow the 2016 campaign right here on RT
America!” Schultz says. King points at the camera and delivers the
network’s slogan, “And question more.”
Founded 11 years ago
Thursday in September of 2005, Russia Today is a Moscow-based,
English-language news outlet which is funded by the Kremlin and serves
to promote Russian state propaganda, like stories about the West
collapsing and the CIA being to blame for the downing of Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, which according to RT, Russia did not
invade.
In 2010, RT branched out to the United States, launching RT America. In a 2014 BuzzFeed investigation,
Rosie Gray reported former RT America employees describing “an
atmosphere of censorship and pressure” at the network—like orders to
report on Germany as a “failed state” despite any evidence that the
country fits the criteria.
One RT anchor, Liz Wahl, protested by
quitting live on air. She later described
herself as “Putin’s pawn.” Casual viewing of the network shows a focus
on negative stories about the U.S., from claims that American Olympians
received special treatment which allowed them to take drugs to outward
mocking of the Democrats’ presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, despite
claiming non-partisanship.
Nevertheless, the network today
broadcasts shows hosted by Schultz, a former sportscaster turned
right-wing radio host turned liberal bullhorn; King, the longtime host
of Larry King Live; and Jesse Ventura, the former wrestler and governor of Minnesota who promotes 9/11 truther conspiracies, among a handful of other less notable names.
Ventura makes sense in a way—RT is a network, after all, with an Illuminati correspondent. Schultz and King, however, are head scratchers.
Both
men left their major American networks—Schultz, when his MSNBC show was
canceled in July 2015; King, when he retired from CNN in 2010—amid
sinking ratings and dwindling popularity.
But that hardly makes them
unique in television, where hosts can come and go with the seasons.
Neither
was persona non grata in the U.S. media when they decided to work for
what amounts to an arm of the Russian government, legitimizing the
network with their presence—King, due to his long history as a reliable
and trustworthy interviewer, and Schultz, for his reputation as an
emotional, liberal populist who says what’s on his mind.
“Endorsements
from prominent people can bring legitimacy to unknown brands,” Nicco
Mele, the director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and
Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, said. “That’s true of
tennis shoes and that’s true of media properties.” Hiring King and
Schultz, Mele said, grants RT America a “patina of respectability”
although, unlike Al Jazeera English, which was initially feared to be an
extension of the Qatari government, RT America has not made it a point
to build a robust newsroom or pursue shoe-leather reporting. As for
concerns about RT, Mele said, “I don’t feel like it’s been overstated.”
Amid
Trump’s decision to appear on King’s program last week—which was
criticized by, among others, President Obama—the hosts’ strange
association with the Russian government has come into focus just as
concerns about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election have reached a
fever pitch.
RT America, with its corn fed media personalities serving to soften the blow of blatantly
anti-American Russian propaganda, now looks like proof of those
concerns, available for viewing 24 hours a day on a cable channel near
you.
And the question remains, why would any American work there if they could avoid it?
“Desperation,”
Jeff Jarvis, a professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate
School of Journalism, said. “To go on RT is—to me—primarily just a
desperate move to have a camera in front of you with willful disregard
for who’s putting that camera there.”
Schultz had initially been eager to do an interview about his role at RT and provide his own answer to that question.
He
scheduled the conversation to take place immediately at his office near
the White House after receiving the request on Tuesday afternoon.
“Your
story just got better,” he wrote in an email. “Obama just called out
Trump for doing an interview on RT. The Russian propaganda channel. We
are not propaganda. Yes, I will speak with you.”
But then something changed abruptly.
“I guess I cant do the interview, [sic]” he wrote, just 12 minutes later.
The
receptionist said he was at his usual post on the 7th floor, but he
refused to come down. “I’m sorry for this… I’m just aware of how unfair
the DB has been to RT,” he said, perhaps referring to the sometimes-stormy history between the two organizations. “I’m not willing to take that chance.
Thanks Ed.”
When
Schultz was on MSNBC, he was an enthusiastic critic of Trump, whom he
lanced as a “racist,” and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he
derisively labeled “Putie.” But since joining RT in January, The News With Ed Schultz host has been neutered.
He’s an anchor now, he stresses, not a pundit. But, as Michael Crowley noted for Politico Magazine,
his shows often focus on U.S. missteps at home and abroad, from
oversized budgets to failing policies in the Middle East. Trump, rather
than being called out, is instead given an exceedingly fair shake,
characterized as someone who’s “tapped into anger among working people.”
It’s Putin-approved programming, in other words.
Obama,
speaking in Philadelphia on Tuesday, said Trump, “just last week went
on Russian state television to talk down our military and to curry favor
with Vladimir Putin. He loves this guy!”
Trump
has repeatedly praised Putin and even parroted the Kremlin talking
point that Russia did not seize Crimea, and the Russian conspiracy
theory that Obama founded ISIS. Thousands of Twitter accounts, known for
pushing demonstrably-fake Russian news stories, are also reliably on
the #TrumpTrain.
When his campaign was run by Paul Manafort, a lobbyist who worked for
Russian oligarchs (among other unsavory characters), they took the
unprecedented step of softening the Republican Party platform’s language regarding how farthe United States would go in defending Ukraine against Russian incursion.
And
Russia has appeared to exert influence over the democratic process in
other ways. The hack of the Democratic National Committee is widely considered, within the U.S. intelligence community, to have been the work of the Russian government. Further, Wikileaks, which is suspected
of having ties to Russia, has been working overtime on behalf of Trump,
taunting the release of materials that would be damaging to Clinton’s
campaign and even, on Twitter (before deleting it), taking a poll of
which illness people thought Clinton was suffering from.
A
spokesperson for Trump attempted to quell concerns about his RT
appearance—during which he criticized the American media and said claims
that the Russians were meddling in the election were probably just
Democratic talking points—by making the dubious claim that Trump simply
didn’t know the show was for Russian state television, but thought it
was for King’s podcast. Then Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway,
said the appearance was just a “favor” to his longtime friend, whose
CNN show he frequented.
King could not be reached for an interview
as of press time, but in response to questions about his association
with RT, he’s often claimed that he is not employed by the network and
they simply license his material. That doesn’t explain why King stars in
at least two ads for the network, where he says the network’s slogan.
King’s publicist was unaware of the ads when asked about them.
One
former RT America anchor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said
King’s claim of independence from RT is suspicious, given his chummy
relationship with the Russian news director.
When the former
anchor was at RT, King taped his show “a few doors down” from the news
director’s office. “They meet and they talk,” the former anchor said. In
King’s interview with Trump, King asked questions that were, in the
former anchor’s telling, “questions that I would’ve been asked to ask if
I was interviewing a congressman or something like that.”
Before
King came onboard, the former anchor remembered, “It was kind of like a
rumor he was coming on and we were all like, ‘What? Why would Larry King
come here?’ It makes no sense.”
The former anchor said, “The Russian news director, I remember he was really, really excited to get him on board.”
For RT, King’s decision to associate with the network was “like Christmas.”
“A
big part of the strategy is to use American voices to spread these
pro-Kremlin messages or point out U.S. hypocrisy,” the former anchor
said. “So, if you have someone like Larry King do that, it really adds
legitimacy… The whole thing with RT is kind of, like, using U.S.
officials and U.S. media figures.”
Still, Trump’s greatest
defender was not a member of his campaign staff or an outside surrogate.
It was his onetime enemy, Schultz.
“It should be pointed out that
the Clinton campaign has refused interviews on RT America,” Schultz
said in a homemade video he posted online. “This is manufactured news by
the Clinton campaign to vilify Donald Trump and connect him to Vladimir
Putin, and that’s their strategy to win the election.”
He added,
“It is so sad and so small and so elementary and I think it’s hurting
Hillary Clinton, which I think is even more than sad.”
Meanwhile,
Schultz was deciding whether or not to change his mind about canceling
our interview.
“Let me think on it,” he said. “I don’t need the story. I
do this job because I love it, not to be the focus of some story.”
He then told me he could be found at the White House, where liberal activists were protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
He
stood on the grass outside the protest in a pinstripe suit and royal
blue shirt, talking on the phone.
He is a tall and broad figure, with
rust-colored hair and small blue eyes that fight against his fleshy
eyelids to make contact with the world.
“I’m sorry that it kinda
worked out that way,” he said about the inconvenience. He claimed it was
his decision to cancel the interview, not RT’s. “I have to respect the
people I’m working for,” he said.
He stared off at the protest, a troubled look on his face. “Our world is fucked up, isn’t it?” he asked.
He said he’d recently taken a “chance” by talking to TheWashington Post,
but was unhappy with the attention in the end—though he wouldn’t
divulge why, or if it had led to trouble at RT. “I’m just at a point in
time in my career where I just, I don’t need any publicity,” he said. “I
do this job ’cause I love it. I’ve never really figured out why the
media covers the media, you know? I’m a reporter just like you are.”
Just
then a protester approached with a stack of signs and asked if Schultz
would like one. “No, thank you, sir,” Schultz said. The protester looked
at him skeptically. “Your days of signs are over?” he asked. Schultz
laughed through a frown. “No, it’s not over,” he said.
Asked if it
bothered him when he was criticized for working for what almost
everyone outside of the Russian government believes is a propaganda
network, Schultz said, “Well, it doesn’t bother me because I know it’s
not the truth, you know? There’s so much in the media that’s not the
truth. You know, so I go with what I know and I go with my instincts and
I go with the facts.”
Schultz emphasized that he’s now “in a
totally different role than what I was doing at MSNBC. I was doing an
opinion show. I’m a nightly news anchor now, I don’t—if you watch my
show, at 8 o’clock—I don’t give opinions.” Although, he was eager to
give his critical opinion of Clinton after Trump’s RT interview proved
controversial.
Still, Schultz called the alleged change “rather
refreshing,” and said the reason he didn’t seek out a job on another
American network was because he wanted to do something different and he
didn’t want to rival MSNBC, where he said he still has a lot of friends.
“I feel very comfortable about being fair to Trump,” he said, “I think I’ve been very fair to him.”
Reminded
how much he used to hate Trump, Schultz said, “Um, well, then I guess
that kind of shows my opinions aren’t getting in the way, right?”
Suddenly, a look of concern spread across Schultz’s face.
He
never wanted to be interviewed, he said, and despite giving a reporter
his location and answering questions for several minutes, he didn’t want
to be quoted. He grew incensed and accusatory, but then seemed to try
to calm himself by saying he was comfortable with everything he had said
on the record.
He said he didn’t want to answer any more questions, but then he ran after me, in a state of total panic.
“I’m asking you professionally to not write anything about me,” he said.
Informed
that I couldn’t promise that, since I was there talking to him to
report a story partially about him—something he knew—his face turned
red.
He moved closer and stared into my eyes, and then he screamed
at me, divulging something personal and wholly unrelated to both RT and
the conflict at hand.
“This is a hit job, I know it is!” he screamed again.
Later,
in an email, he said, “I’m on record asking you not to do s story on
me. I did not know I was being recorded. I don’t want any coverage . I’m
professionally asking you to not write about me.
Thank you Ed [sic].”
A few hours later, he called my phone and hung up.
