The Trump smoking gun

— 07.11.2017 07:43 AM

From the New York Times:

Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.

The email to the younger Mr. Trump was sent by Rob Goldstone, a publicist and former British tabloid reporter who helped broker the June 2016 meeting. In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he was interested in receiving damaging information about Mrs. Clinton, but gave no indication that he thought the lawyer might have been a Kremlin proxy.

Mr. Goldstone’s message, as described to The New York Times by the three people, indicates that the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information.

The corrupt Trump cabal, naturally, will say (a) they don’t know the information came from the Kremlin; (b) the information received was of no consequence; and (c) Donald Trump Jr. was not a Trump campaign official.

None of those will fly – and they certainly won’t be persuasive with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, because:

(a) There is already lots of evidence, sworn and otherwise, that the Kremlin was helping Trump, via various campaign officials (cf. Messrs. Manafort, Flynn, Kushner, Page, Gordon, Cohen, Sessions et al.). This new email is important, however, because it directly implicates Trump’s family.

(b) If the information received wasn’t important,  why did Trump’s own son, his son-in-law, and his top campaign official all drop everything, mid-campaign, to attend? And whether the information was important or not is actually irrelevant – Trump’s family and campaign believed it was from a foreign power bent on defeating Hillary Clinton, and that is enough.

(c) Trump’s inner circle throughout his quixotic campaign comprised less than ten people, half of whom were members of his family.  “Diaper” Don Jr. appeared in the media over and over, during that race, to defend his father.  He was a Trump campaign surrogate and spokesperson.

This all meets the legal definition of “collusion” under 18 U.S. Code, 953:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

As of today, we know that Donald Trump’s most senior officials, and his immediate family, colluded with a hostile power and/or an enemy of the United States.

Nothing will happen about this until, one, Mueller reports and, two, the Democrats win sufficient seats in the mid-terms.

But they’ve got them now.


Comments (14)

This week’s column: on Trudeau and Alberta

— 07.10.2017 03:29 AM

So, the Alberta mistake.  Also, the braying and screeching.

Even the Washington Post has (amusingly) taken note.  The Washington Post!

The hullaballoo – the ceaseless braying and screeching – has prompted me to declare: I’m an Albertan.  Alberta’s home.  My family has lived there for decades. Hell, I’m heading back there to teach at the University of Calgary’s law school soon enough.

And, yes, I’m a liberal/Liberal (although I’ve always been more of a Democrat, but that’s a story for another day).  But, just because I’ve worked for a three-majority Liberal Prime Minister (that Chrétien guy) and a three-majority Liberal Premier (that McGuinty guy), doesn’t mean I’m ever afraid to criticize my own team. In the past few days, I’ve roughed them up pretty good over the appalling Khadr payment, for example.

So, believe me when I tell you: this Trudeau-forgetting-Alberta thing is a prairie-style butt truffle.  It’s stupid.  Ten reasons.

  1. Come on. Do you seriously think, Conservatives, that he’d leave out Alberta on purpose?Like, seriously?  If you think that, you’re stupid.  Sorry, but you are.
  2. He apologized! The second he realized his mistake, Trudeau walked back to the microphone and corrected it. “I’m a little embarrassed. I got excited somewhere over the Rockies,” he said. “Alberta, I love you. Happy Canada Day!”
  3. Alberta matters. The guy doesn’t just love Alberta, he needs Alberta.  Since 2013, he’s invested considerable political capital and resources in winning Alberta seats, and it’s paid off, big time – even in my hometown of Calgary, a political earthquake last experienced a half-Century ago.
  4. Watch him. The day after he announced his run for the Liberal Party leadership in his home riding – the day after!– Trudeau Jr. went straight to Calgary, and professed his undying fealty, as well as his disgust with his father’s signature energy policy, the NEP.  That did not go unnoticed, in Alberta.
  5. He’s walked the talk. Trudeau’s spilled a lot of political blood, in B.C. and elsewhere, to fight for the pipelines Alberta needs to get its oil to market.  On his watch, Keystone approval happened.  On his watch, Trans Mountain approval happened. On his watch, Line 3 approval happened, too.  A Conservative Prime Minister didn’t get those things done – a Liberal Prime Minister did: a Trudeau, no less.
  6. Um, who cares? Sensible Albertans shrugged about the sloppy speechifying.  Naheed Nenshi, for instance, called the resulting controversy “silly,” because it was.  “I screw up speeches all the time,” Nenshi said. So do the Conservative politicos who brayed and shrieked about Trudeau’s.
  7. Alberta has clout. Trudeau put two ministers from Alberta in his rather-small cabinet.  That’s the same number as Manitoba, one more than Saskatchewan, and one less than B.C. Overall, Ontario has the most representation at the cabinet table, followed closely by the West. That matters.
  8. R-e-s-p-e-c-t. My friend, Alberta Liberal legend Darryl Raymaker, has recently written an excellent book about Alberta and the Trudeaus, called Trudeau’s Tango. You should buy it.  In his compendious book, Raymaker reminds everyone that the Trudeau name has always been controversial in Alberta – but respected, too.  The Trudeau name gave “Alberta Liberals hope,” Raymaker writes.  The father, then – like the son, now – “was a man for his time – new, youthful, superbly confident, tough, and equally articulate in both official languages.”  What made Pierre Trudeau appealing in Alberta in his era makes the son just as appealing in his.  Conservatives dominate Alberta – but the Trudeaus (and Rachel Notley) remind us they don’t own
  9. Check the numbers. Polls say Trudeau’s still competitive. CBC’s Eric Grenier – who most recently took an up-close look – says that, even with the Tories way ahead in Alberta, Trudeau is still doing well enough to win again. In fact, Grenier notes, at about 26 per cent support, Trudeau is still tracking a couple of points higher in Alberta than he did on Election Day 2015.  While the CPC, notably, remains where it was on that day.
  10. It was an INNOCENT MISTAKE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. None of the conservatives who leapt on Trudeau’s gaffe – Jason Kenney, Brian Jean, Michelle Rempel, et al. – were nearly as outraged as they claimed to be.  They were, as politicians do, taking political advantage of a rival politicians’ slip.  It was a mistake, to be sure.  But not a career-ending one.

Albertans (where I grew up) are like Quebeckers (where I was born).  They see themselves as a distinct society: part of Canada, but arguably better than the rest of Canada.  As such, when the offered the opportunity, they will never hesitate to moan that they have been harmed and humiliated and hurt.  It’s in the genes.

So, will Albertans accordingly let Trudeau’s slip, slip by? Not on your life.

When even the Washington Post is taking note of the mistake, there’s braying and screeching to be done!

 


Comments (12)

Hope the spider was okay

— 07.08.2017 08:10 AM

The Mother of all Storms up here in the woods last night. Here’s what the security camera caught before everything shut down. 

Can you see the mystery guest, coming up the hill?



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Comments (0)

Summertime at the CBC: bite me

— 07.07.2017 08:14 AM

I get it.  The full-time folks are gone on holiday, people are a bit sleepy, Peter Mansbridge has finally (finally) departed.  CBC isn’t firing on all cylinders.  I get it.

But, you know, I keep thinking about two things.

One, Steve Ladurantaye gets pilloried by CBC – he gets eviscerated – for an obvious tweeted joke.  Being (full disclosure) a friend of Steve, and being someone who writes novels – and, you know, fiction would be impossible if it didn’t “appropriate” culture – I found the way in which they treated him appalling and disgusting and cruel.  I wrote about it.  (Steve doesn’t know I’m writing this, by the way.  He doesn’t tell me what to say, and vice-versa.)

Two, this week the CBC itself – on its flagship programs The National and Power and Politics, no less – bring on a far-Right white supremacist leader, and let him say whatever the Hell he wants.  This creep has written on The Rebel’s web site about how he hates Jews, calls blacks “monkeys,” calls himself “anti-Semitic,” says Jews should “get over” the Holocaust, and authors essays titled “I’m Not a Racist, Sexist, or a Homophobe, You Nigger Slut Faggot.” It’s all there in Google, easy to find. And CBC brings the racist on TV, arrogantly thinking they can “handle” him, and he handles them instead.  And, only when there is a massive backlash about their stupidity do they offer up a hasty apology.  Only about how they questioned him – not about bringing him on in the first place.

But did anyone get dismissed for helping out a neo-Nazi?  Did anyone get maligned in company-wide emails from the bosses? Did anyone get named and shamed?  Did anyone get forced by management to sit through a veritable Salem witch trial, in which they were defamed and libelled, and their bosses didn’t say word one to stop it?

Not on your fucking life.

As a test, and because I allegedly know a little bit about the racist Right, I wrote to a CBC manager, and offered to write up a piece about why they made a mistake.  The eventual reply: “Don’t think we’ll bite on this.”

Gotcha.  We’ll bite on Steve Ladurantaye, however, because Deepest Annex was apoplectic for all of ten minutes.  But bite on why Canadians’ tax dollars shouldn’t be used to provide an uncritical platform for a white supremacist?

No, the CBC won’t bite on that.

Well, you know what, CBC?  Bite on me.  Bite on us.  You guys are so full of shit, it almost makes me wonder if crazy Right-wingers are right about you.

You know: the ones you invite on-air, to talk about why indigenous people deserve to be scalped.


Comments (18)

CBC-TV arrogantly thought it could handle a far-Right leader. It got handled, instead.

— 07.06.2017 07:53 AM


And it isn’t just me saying so. As HuffPo noted, your interview went completely “off the rails.”

Is it within your mandate to give an uncritical platform to a wasted hater like McInnes, who has written on The Rebel’s web site about how he hates Jews, calls blacks “monkeys,” calls himself “anti-Semitic,” says Jews should “get over” the Holocaust, and authors essays titled “I’m Not a Racist, Sexist, or a Homophobe, You Nigger Slut Faggot“? Is it?

No, it isn’t.  Get your heads out of your asses, The National and Power and Politics.

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Comments (6)