So they claim, and you can read their report and make up your own mind.
The Intercept is fairly credible, although it sometimes takes risks with the people it is reporting on. That's a hazard of reporting on secrets, though. This report is by Glenn Greenwald, whom I didn't take to be credible not that long ago -- but he's done good work lately, I have to admit.
I will say this much about Greenwald - he appears to be fairly consistent in his application of principles to situations, regardless of who is involved.
ReplyDeleteI often don't agree with his view of things, but that alone sets him far above the vast majority of pundits, who pick and choose their principles depending on whether they support the preferred narrative du jour.
I still think this whole sudden focus on Russia stinks to high heaven. I agree there's too much we don't know, but that lack of knowledge should preclude a lot of the specious "conclusions" being shopped to the public.
Greenwald's infamy was about deceptive tactics used for self-promotion, many years back. I don't mind that he and I don't always agree, but my original concerns were that someone who would be so nakedly deceptive in one way might well be in another (to whit, in his journalism). That doesn't seem to be the case, at least not lately.
ReplyDeleteAs for the focus on Russia, it is interesting. Nate Silver said, early on, that demographics explained Trump's victory -- pollsters were just wrong in their projection of what the electorate would look like. Nothing else was needed. And then Vox said, just today, that Comey's FBI letter is sufficient to explain the late swing to Trump. So it seems like his victory is more than adequately explained without Putin having anything to do with it.
But those explanations don't allow us to call for Trump's immediate removal from office, or accuse him of treason (or anything else). So they aren't as useful, I guess.
Still, it's of some legitimate concern that we can't any of us say for sure that Trump hasn't got financial ties to Russian mobsters, say. He's got no one to blame but himself for his own lack of transparency about his financing, e.g., his refusal to release his tax returns.
Trump had--and has--no obligation to release his tax returns. As to our inability to say Trump hasn't got financial ties to Russian mobsters--because, say, he's so insufficiently transparent he won't release his tax returns, the same could be said about you or I. And our tax returns--or Trump's--wouldn't shed any light on that, anyway.
ReplyDeleteSince Trump works for me, along with some 200 million other members of his committee boss, I apply the same standard to him as my employee on integrity that I apply to myself.
Let the accusers produce something more substantial than empty accusations. Absent that, they don't have enough credibility to warrant being taken seriously, much less to have an investigation.
Eric Hines
I think the point is, the state should suddenly become a whole lot shallower.
ReplyDelete"Shallow State at War With Trump" -- Not so scary, eh?
Nothing I hadn't told and warned the Alt Right about. Humans don't believe in the truth so easily though.
ReplyDelete